


Isolated by Death

by SatuD2



Series: Mi Familia is the World [2]
Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Afterlife, All of the relationships basically, Angst, Berto/Carmen, Canon Compliant, Coco/Julio, Elena/Franco, Enrique/Luisa, F/F, F/M, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Lesbian Victoria, Miscommunication, Movie Spoilers, POV Multiple, Pre-Canon, Separations, Slice of Life, Spoilers, Time Skips, Victoria/OC
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-26 01:36:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 23
Words: 39,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13225446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SatuD2/pseuds/SatuD2
Summary: Beyond the veil is a thriving, exciting, marvellous world. Of colour and music. But regrets will latch on and fester. And words left unspoken in life can return to haunt those in death.Sequel to Proud Corazón.





	1. 1921

By the light of covered lanterns, they walked together. Through empty streets. Neither able to find words to break the silence, Ernesto’s toast hanging between them. The relief still sitting comfortably in his chest, the knowledge that even though he was leaving that there were no hard feelings. That they were still friends.

Suddenly, a knife in his stomach. Sharp and twisting and squeezing. He’d never felt a pain like it.

“Ernesto…”

He took a stumbling step. Gasped out his friend’s name again. The backs of his fists pressed into the pit of his gut. He felt Ernesto’s hand on his back. Unbearably hot. Patting in a comforting motion. A soothing murmur about chorizo. Could it have been the chorizo? His mind flashed back of all the things they’d eaten and drank that day. The chorizo was the only thing Ernesto hadn’t shared in… Then with a deft movement, Ernesto pulled his guitar case free. Left him with an empty hand to brace against his stomach. Long fingers prodding. Trying to find and soothe the source of the pain.

His suitcase fell from his other hand. Crashed open on the pavement. He was only vaguely aware of his clothes spilling on the ground. Of the small red notebook bouncing once then settling back into the case. All he could think of was the pain. His world narrowed to pinpoints. Pain. Step. Pain. Gasp. Pain.

The bitter taste of cheap tequila rising in the back of his throat. The tearing hurt of his chest as he tried to draw in breath. The increasingly irregular pounding of his own heart thumping in his chest, his wrists, his neck, his ears.

He looked up at the sky and saw the moon. Felt a fleeting flash of remorse that almost, but not quite, silenced the hurt. In Santa Cecilia his girl would be looking out the window. At the same moon, or the clouded sky. Singing and resting her chin in her hands. Dark braids with bright ribbons. Brown eyes shining. A small smile beneath a tiny nose.

His girl.

His Coco.

He slumped onto the road and felt his scalp meet the sharp corner of a raised stone. Felt warm blood trickle from the wound. Tried to curl around the hurt in his gut but found himself unable to move.

And as the light faded from his vision and everything went black, his mind revolved around his girls. The two he had left behind. The two he had desperately wanted to return home to. The two he would never see ever again.

What awful luck.

* * *

Waking up was a surprise, though not an altogether unpleasant one. He wasn’t in pain, for one. His stomach felt fine. No sign of that terrible pain that had been there only a few short moments before. He let out a low sigh. Bent his arm and tried to rest his hand on his stomach. But where before his skin had always met flesh, now it fell through, and bumped against his spine with a bony clunk.

That was enough to shoot him to his feet. He looked down with wide eyes. White bone, articulated with nothing but air, met his gaze. He pulled his shirt up. Stared with horror at the gap between the bottom of his ribs and the bony arcs of his pelvis.

“Welcome to the Land of the Dead!” An official looking woman in a blue uniform approached him and handed him a form. “If you could fill out your name, mode of death and any family members we can connect you to.”

“I’m dead?” He reached out. Watched with an odd detachment as long white finger bones closed around the clipboard and gripped the pen. He could feel it. The sensation beneath his fingers. How could he feel with no skin??

“Yes, señor. Very much so.” She moved on, brushing past him and onto another equally horrified looking skeleton.

Their faces were not just skulls. There was a bony face on top, almost. Decorated with the swirls and dots of decorated sugar skulls. Lips made of bone and expressive eyebrow ridges. Eyes in sockets of darkness with eyelids of fluid blackness. It should have been terrifying, but it wasn’t somehow.

He looked at the form. Some of this was easy. Name, fine. Date of death, cool. Age of death, sure. Mode of death? Remembering the pain, remembering Ernesto’s suggestion, he wrote ‘Food poisoning’. Paused, added a dash and ‘Chorizo’ to the end.

Then came the really hard bit.

“Dead family,” he murmured, tapping the pen on the clipboard. Pursed bony lips and narrowed his eyes. Did he have any dead family? He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t even remember his papa’s name. It had been so long. Ernesto, Imelda and Coco were his only real family. Felipe and Óscar too, he supposed. And they were all still alive.

Uncertain, he left it blank. Scribbled in the rest. Handed the form back to the woman. She flipped through it, read through his info.

“Ah, a musician.”

“Yes.” Somewhat embarrassed. She smiled at him, and though the sight was disconcerting he found it infinitely comforting as well.

“You will be pleased to know that music is very important in the Land of the Dead. We’ll be sure to find a place for you in the Arts District. What sort of music did you play?”

“Uh…all sorts?” He returned her smile, unable to help himself. “I played the guitar mostly.”

“Well, here’s hoping your family leaves one as an offering next Día de Muertos.” She laughed. He joined in, but uncertainly. “In the meantime you’ll have to borrow one, señor. Apologies for that.”

He nodded. Blinked rapidly as she ushered him through metal gates beneath a sign that said ‘New Arrivals’ and into a lobby marked with ‘Department of Family Reunions’. There were bells ringing, skeletons running through the gates and embracing people who were stumbling in around him. There were tears, and for a moment Héctor wondered how they could cry. Where the tears came from. But that thought was quickly silenced as he wandered along through the lobby and pushed out the other side. Another officer, this one a gentleman with silver hair, pointed him towards the Arts District. For a moment the stacked buildings and glimmering lights overwhelmed him, but he forced himself to press on. Found himself in a narrow street lined with warehouses. Each lit from within by coloured lights. From some the sound of music rolled, from others only silence. Those were the doors stained with paint and dusted with plaster.

He could almost be at home here, but he had no idea where to turn, was lost in a maze of houses and workshops. Not knowing where he would be welcome.

As the night wore on he found himself a comfortable seat beneath a street lamp that glowed with soft orange light, and started going through his pockets.

In one he found his travel documents. A photo of his own smiling face. He touched it gently, followed the line of his cheeks, the length of his nose, and pressed a finger briefly on the dimple in his left cheek. Then lifted his hand. Traced the new topography of his own face, felt the high cheekbones, the sharp point of his chin. Realised he had hair and his goatee. The ridges beneath his fingertips were familiar and yet achingly different.

He shook it off. He was never getting his old face back. He was dead. And in the Land of the Dead there were only skeletons. He would have to get used to it.

Another pocket. This one holding a few meagre pesos. All of the money he’d had in the world. Enough for one train ticket back to Santa Cecilia. Everything else he had made had gone straight back to Imelda, wrapped in letters of song lyrics, poems, and updates.

With the thought of his wife he started digging through his pockets with renewed vigour. Moving with frantic, nervous energy, spilling paper and pencils and scraps of lint onto the cobblestones. But there was no other photograph there. He must’ve packed it in his suitcase, along with his notebook. The picture of his girls. The one he’d insisted they sat for before he left.

His detached veneer cracked. His world shattered around him. Unable to understand, he leaned forward, heaving. Pulled at his hair and squeezed his eyes tight and screamed his grief. That photo was the one thing he really wanted in that moment. To see Imelda’s stony countenance, amusement just visible beneath like a thread of gold, and Coco’s enthusiastic grin, her giggle almost audible just looking at her face. The slight blurring around her where they hadn’t been able to keep her still.

It couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t be here, alone, with nothing of his family. It wasn’t _fair_.

“You okay, chamaco?”

A croaky voice. A voice that spoke of a lifetime of cigarettes and whiskey. Héctor looked up and saw a bald skeleton approaching. His shirt was open, revealing his ribs and a spine that curved to the left.

“My family…” Héctor gestured helplessly at the paper he’d pulled from his pockets. At the photo of his own dumb living face. “I don’t have anything.”

“Ah buck up, kiddo, you’ll see them soon. You’ve missed it this year, but Día de Muertos is never too far away.” The skeleton approached, held out a hand. “José.”

“Héctor.” A tentative handshake. Unable to stop a grimace pulling at his lips.

“You’re very new, huh? Not used to the bones yet.” José grinned. “Come on, let’s find you a place to settle in. We’ll get you everything you need until your first offering.”

Still uncertain, Héctor scooped the paper back into his pockets. Considered the photo of his face and tucked it into his jacket. Followed José through winding streets and to a welcoming boarding house. A place for new spirits to rest until they found their place in the Land of the Dead.


	2. 1922

It was late in 1921 when Mama first noticed that Coco’s shoes were suffering. They were brand new, but the sole was already breaking away from the leather top.  Worn and strained under her dancing. Not that she ever did that while her mama was around.

No, Coco was smarter than that. After all of Papa’s things had been thrown from the house, there was a strict ban on music. All sorts. No more humming with her Tíos. No more dancing as they set the table. No more singing at bedtime.

But Mama didn’t know that Coco had searched the bin, had scavenged every scrap of paper. She had hidden them beneath her bed. Late at night, when everyone else was asleep, she would creep beneath and pull them out. Hold them to the window so she could look at them in the light of the street lamps outside. Lovingly trace the lines of his kind smile and warm eyes. The hook of his nose. The point of his chin.

She would hold the letters he’d written and try to understand the words. She was too little still, too young to read anything but the simplest letters he had sent her, more from memory than actual comprehension.

“Papa loves you,” she would read, recite over and over again. “Papa misses you.”

The letters to Mama were utterly incomprehensible. The writing much smaller, less clear. Her favourite bits were the sketches, usually of Mama’s smile or the glint of her eye. Never a full face. Never a complete picture. Just features that were undeniably Mama.

She would sing the song he’d written for her. Her lullaby. She’d mumble it quietly and dance around the room with her Papa’s photo cradled in her hands.

So, when Mama asked how her shoes were already so broken, she lied. Said she’d been running. Said she’d tripped and scuffed them in the uneven cobbles outside the market.

Mama wasn’t going to put up with that. She set her mouth and straightened her back. Had that familiar steely glint come into her eyes. Mama could do anything she set her mind to.

She scavenged materials. Got her brothers to help her with cutting and sizing leather. Borrowed and begged for the correct moulds and thread. And crafted Coco a pair of sturdy little shoes that fit her perfectly. That needed only a day to wear in. That didn’t give her blisters on her heels or pinched her toes.

They were perfect to dance in. They were perfect to run in. And when other mothers in town saw her perfect new shoes, they started asking Mama where she had found them. If they could get a pair for their child. By Día de Muertos that year Rivera shoes were an honest to god brand. Mama had bought the equipment she needed: the moulds to make other sizes, leather, thread and sewing machines. She was making it a proper business. She was thriving. Even without Papa.

* * *

Héctor straightened his jacket and picked sadly at the threads that were already unravelling at the seams. He had discarded his shirt. It was too much effort to keep untangling it from his ribs, too distracting to try to deal with it flapping in the gap of his abdomen. It was much easier just to let that space hang open.

“Hurry up, kid!”

“Coming!” He made sure his hair was neat. Straightened his goatee. Adjusted his neckerchief, then rushed from the room. José was waiting on the street, tapping a foot and checking his watch in an exaggerated movement. “I’m ready! After you.”

José shook his head, laughed a little, and started to guide Héctor towards Marigold Grand Central Station. The bridges of petals were already extending over the gap to the living world, shining orange with pillars dripping down into nothingness. It was beautiful.

“Okay, amigo. We’re going to line up and they’re going to scan us one by one. If your photo is up on an ofrenda then the light goes green and you get to cross the bridge and see your living family. Get it?”

“I think so.” Héctor took a calming breath. Stood with José in the line and tried not to fidget too much. Watched as spirit after spirit passed through the checkpoint with no issues and felt an odd yawning nervousness in the space of his abdomen.

Finally, it was José’s turn. The old skeleton turned to him and winked. “See you on the other side, amigo.”

He went through, smiling jovially at the clerk at the desk. She scanned him and the light dinged green.

“Have a great visit, José,” she said with a smile. He nodded, saluted with one finger, and moved through. Stood on the platform before the bridge. Smiled encouragingly and gestured for Héctor to come through.

Héctor swallowed hard. Stepped into the checkpoint.

“Evening,” he said. Smiled uncomfortably.

“Good evening.” She smiled back at him and tapped something on the desk. It scanned his face. He felt the designs on his cheeks, jaw and forehead warm slightly as it did. Felt a rush of heat highlight the lines of his skull. Then, a harsh buzzing noise. A red flash. Her eyes narrowed, skated over the display in front of her, then met his. There was regret there. The sight of it chilled his bones and made every joint in his body feel loose. “I’m sorry, señor.”

“S-sorry?” He blinked at her. Looked over at José who had tilted his head, confused.

“It seems no one put up your photo this year. I’m sorry, you have to go back through the checkpoint.”

“No, I don’t understand.” Héctor’s vision grew wobbly at the edges. Wavering and flashing with dots.

“Señor, you have to go back through the checkpoint. Please, you’re holding up the line.”

“I don’t understand,” he said again. Swayed on his feet. Leaned forward and splayed long bony fingers on the desk. “There’s been a mistake. Scan me again.”

She did. She did so several times. Each time that harsh buzzer sounded and the red light flashed. It echoed in his head. Rattled his teeth. Shuddered down his spine.

“I don’t understand. Imelda would have put up my photo. She must have. There’s been a mistake.”

She must be angry with him. Angry for dying so soon after his last letter. The one where he had promised he would be home soon. She must have been so disappointed to have that hope and then to be let down.

He leaned forward again, towering over the clerk in her seat. She cringed backwards, and the surprise he felt at his own aggression was outweighed by the desperation that tore his chest open.

“There’s been a mistake,” he insisted. “You can’t send me back. Let me over the bridge. I have to see my family, don’t you understand? I _need_ to see them.”

Two burly officers gripped his shoulders, holding his elbows and pulling him away from the desk. Back across the checkpoint and into the station. The sleeve of his jacket tore as he strained to get back to the checkpoint. Tried desperately to get back to the woman, to the scanner, to the bridge. On the other side José turned away, walked onto the petals, and didn’t look back.

They didn’t seem to understand. No matter how forcefully Héctor expressed the words. He had to see his girls. He _needed_ to see them. To be around them. Even if he couldn’t touch them or talk to them, at least he could see them and know they were alright.

He was pushed back into the streets. Told in no uncertain terms to go home. To try again next year.

But he didn’t have a home. Not really. The boarding house was really only for those who were in the lead up to their first Día de Muertos. To give them time to get settled in the Land of the Dead and find their feet. Find their place.

Numb. The buzzer still echoing in his skull. The red light still flashing before his eyes. Silent and dazed, he wandered through the streets. Just as he had that first night. But this time there was no friendly skeleton to guide his way. They were over in the Land of the Living seeing their families. Their children and grandchildren. José was probably heading over to his sister’s house, to see his nephews and nieces and their children. 

This was ridiculous. There had to be some mistake.

He just…couldn’t understand.


	3. 1923-1927

At 24 Imelda opened her first official shoe store; nailed a shoe-shaped leather patch to the door with the words ‘Rivera’ branded in, stamped with the year he’d left. Óscar and Felipe were the only other people who worked there. And even they only worked part time, spending most of their day tailoring dresses and suits. Coco followed her as she set up her first formal workshop. Initially using only very basic tools. Trying to craft high quality shoes for anyone who asked.

As time passed she grew more skilled. Soon, it was like second nature. Similar to tailoring dresses and suits, but more creative than that. Being able to build something from scratch, to use her hands and tools to mould leather into strong, solid shoes, made her heart happy. She replaced music with the beat of her hammer, replaced melody with needle and thread.

She didn’t need music. She had shoes to pour her creative soul into.

* * *

In the Land of the Dead, Héctor begged for a guitar. Finally, was given one by a kind musician who had a spare. He found a little studio to live in and tried to make a living (a deading?) by playing his guitar on street corners. Busking. Taking requests. He drew a crowd often, but not always. Spent most of his time singing folk songs or old lewd inn ballads.

That Día de Muertos he tried to pass through the checkpoint again. Was flooded with incomprehension when it buzzed red at him. This time he tried to leap over the desk, tried to see what was behind there that was denying his access. The clerk—the same woman from last year—had kicked him back over and hit the bell for security. In the end, he’d spent another night in the streets, lost and alone.

* * *

At age 6, Coco went through a phase where she started to press Imelda about when Papa was coming home. She would kick her feet and demand a lullaby at bedtime. Demand _her_ lullaby. Insist that Papa was coming home each and every day. She would sit by the front door and wait. Imelda’s heart broke with each disappointment. Each confused question. Soft redirection didn’t work. Gentle reminders didn’t work. Eventually her temper flared.

“He’s not coming back! He abandoned us, m’ija! Do _not_ mention that man again!”

And Coco, who looked just like her mother, tilted her head back. Met Imelda’s eyes. Didn’t quaver or quail or cower. Simply pressed her lips together, whirled on her heel, stormed to her bedroom. The door slammed. Defiantly, a rhythmic drumming of her feet and her voice raised loudly as she sang rang through the thin walls. And this time, at least, Imelda let her be. Unable to face that sweet voice, singing the words she’d last heard in a soft, gentle baritone.

She ran to the courtyard. Leaned beneath the tree where Héctor had proposed to her, dashing away tears and pinching her lips shut. Rooting her feet firmly to the ground.

Until Óscar came out to her, embraced her, holding her tight against him. She could hear Felipe inside, talking Coco down. Settling her tantrum. Eventually, he brought her out to apologise. And she did. Not abashed, not ashamed. Looking Imelda right in the eye as she spoke clearly. And in that moment, Héctor shone through her, so bright Imelda almost looked away.

* * *

Héctor’s song writing had come to a halt. He wasn’t able to nail down melodies. Words evaded him. He had sung seventeen straight verses of a song based around ex-lovers, a song where each had banded together to mock the narrator, to get a new notebook. It was the bookbinder’s favourite, after all, and he had delighted in the new verses Héctor had crafted. The new notebook was the same as his one in life. Red leather. Simply designed. This one’s pages pre-lined with inked staves.

But the pages overwhelmed him. The emptiness of them. The possibility. He managed to rewrite his old songs. Filled half the pages, then stalled when he tried to write more.

It was as though his heart wouldn’t cooperate. He could still make things up on the fly, but when it came to write it down it wouldn’t flow.

And that year when he couldn’t cross the bridge, he wasn’t surprised. He was angry. He was _furious_. And he spent his first night in the gaol of the Land of the Dead.

* * *

Suitors continued to call, kept trying to woo her. They’d heard her husband was gone, saw a hand devoid of rings, and decided to try their luck. Even though she was used goods, though there was a child in the picture, she was still beautiful and strong and commanded attention. Especially now, when she didn’t want it.

Initially, Óscar and Felipe had driven them away. Protected her as best they could like good big brothers. Some came in the dead of night though: positioned themselves beneath her window and bothered her with the patter of pebbles on her shutters. She usually woke spooning a pillow, holding it to her chest, a position she would quickly straighten out of. And though she tried to ignore them, some required more…persuasive send offs.

She kept a bowl of fruit beside her window for this purpose. If apricots didn’t do it, usually oranges would. The colourful orange splatter it made on their shoes and jackets never failed to cheer her up.

But they kept coming. At the rate of one or two a month. Some trying, misguided as they were, to serenade her. Misguided first because the Rivera family made no secret of their ban on music. Second, because they in no way could compare to the voice and music of Héctor. Each new voice just led her back to the memory of him. Made her compare and think about him again. Renewed the dreams.

She saved the grapefruit for those suitors.

* * *

Héctor craved human contact. José had palmed him off, stating he needed to focus on the boarding house and helping new souls get settled. He couldn’t be friends with every new spirit who was lonely. He would be overwhelmed.

The logic made sense. Héctor held no ill will, but it still hurt. He had no one to talk to. No one he could talk to, or laugh with. No one he could play off, could use to lift his mood.

He tried to join a band. An orchestra. His skill at the guitar made him an easy choice, but he didn’t click with the other musicians. They found out how he died. Either not understood, or twisted the truth so it was easier to make fun of him. He only managed to deal with being called Chorizo for a few weeks before he’d quit. Vowed never to work with them again. He didn’t have a sense of humour about his death. It was still too fresh.

* * *

Coco at 8 had stopped asking about Papa. But she never stopped thinking about him. Hoping he would be home. She read his letters, again and again. The corners started to wear and fade so she started to use only the tips of her fingers. Unfolding them carefully and laying them flat on the bed. She wanted to preserve them for as long as she possibly could.

She didn’t understand why the letters had stopped. But she didn’t believe that he had abandoned them. Not really. She thought he had gotten caught up. Maybe gotten hurt. Maybe he was suffering from amnesia, like the hero in the book Tío Felipe had read to her at bedtime. Maybe one day he would get his memory back and come back home to her. To them.

Mama was angry now, but she would forgive him. She would be won over by his singing, the singing that Coco still heard in her dreams. They would sing together, the way they had when she was a little girl, would hold her between them as they danced, and everything would be perfect again.

* * *

After six years of being turned away, Héctor started to learn the names of all the officers, clerks and guards. He would stop in every so often to learn who was on. Trying to butter them up. He would bring them gifts, sing their favourite songs, trade and barter to find their favourite treats. They started to recognise him too. Initially with joy, then with suspicion.

He was hoping to ease his transit, certainly. To help find his way across the bridge to see his girls. But he also wanted to apologise. To try to make up for his behaviour on Día de Muertos. Because no matter how hard he tried to contain himself, the buzzer still hurt too much, still overwhelmed his senses.  Still made him explode with rage or collapse into despair. And he was always so ashamed afterwards.

So, he apologised. Gave them gifts. Played them songs. Learned their names.

And longed for his family.


	4. 1928

Ernesto de la Cruz poured another shot of tequila. Hesitated, glancing suspiciously at the closed door, then filled the second shot glass on the table. Clinked the bottom of his glass with the rim of the other and downed his drink. It burned down his throat. Lit a fire in his belly.

He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. Propped shiny boots on the table. Rested a hand briefly on his stomach.

He was a success. The greatest musician of all time. He played in front of crowds packed so tight that it was standing room only. Delivered impromptu concerts on street corners and on train platforms to adoring crowds. Women couldn’t get enough of him. Men admired and envied him. He was producing his third album. A short one: there were only a limited number of new songs he could draw from now. There was talk of putting him in movies, when they perfected sound, of course. He was charismatic and talented, but without his voice he didn’t have a lot to offer. His voice and Héctor’s songs.

He filled the shot glass, tapped it against the full one and downed it again. It was very good. Smooth and easy to drink. Could be dangerous under the wrong circumstances.

He opened a drawer of his desk without looking. Fished around until his hand bumped against a leather notebook. He pulled it out, looked at it with the vague disinterest of someone rapidly careening past tipsy and into full on drunk. He put his glass down, filled it with a shaking hand. Then opened the notebook and flipped through the pages.

Carefully drawn staves. Keys and chords and notes pencilled in with a sure hand. The words beneath printed clearly so they could be easily read. And, tucked safely in the pages, a letter. A letter that had been given to him to send off three days before the most important decision of his life.

He pulled it out. Looked at the address that, like the words in the notebook, were printed clearly. Opened it up. The pesos that had been folded inside had been long since spent. The creases of the paper were deeply worn.

He read through it again. The final written words of Héctor Rivera. Where he had opened his heart, admitted his homesickness. The ache in his chest from being away from his wife. How he planned to come home as soon as he was able. How much he was looking forward to seeing her again. To having her in his arms.

That woman had caused nothing but trouble. From the first moment Ernesto had met her he’d known she would be their undoing. The sting of her slap on his cheek and the heat of his embarrassment rising in his face. No woman treated him that way.

But Héctor had been absolutely smitten. Where before there had only been Ernesto, now suddenly there was this other. This fierce, powerful, vital woman. And yes, she had inspired some decent songs, but she’d also snapped chains around Héctor’s soul. Trapped him with a baby and a marriage. Stifled his creative energy. Demanded he split his time, devoting most of it to her and the child.

Ernesto sighed to himself. Folded the letter and placed it on the desk. Eyed the two full shots of tequila. Picked up one and tossed it back. Felt his stomach twist and his throat burn. Shook his head sharply.

He hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone. Not really. He just wanted to fulfil his dream. And Héctor, who had once understood that, had turned like a knife in his hand. Had packed up the bags and threatened to take back his songs. As though he needed them anyway, as though he didn’t know them all by heart.

“Rest in peace, amigo,” he said, his voice soft and thoughtful. He picked up the second shot. Toasted to nowhere in particular. And tipped it down his throat.

* * *

Héctor sat in the cell. Long bony hands dangling between his knees. Head hung low. Tears dripping from his high cheekbones as he stared vacantly at the ground.

He still didn’t understand: his photo should be on the ofrenda. It had been nearly seven years. If Imelda hadn’t forgiven him by now than she never would. Which, though it broke his heart, he could almost understand. He had left them. He hadn’t come home. Imelda’s anger was totally understandable. It didn’t explain, however, why Ernesto didn’t have his photo up. Why his best friend wasn’t mourning him. It didn’t make any sense.

He replayed the night in his head. How he’d approached the scanner, smiled and said hello to Sofia, the clerk who was on the early shift this year. Felt that same flush of warmth as he’d been scanned. The yawning anxiety as he’d waited for the verdict. The red flash. The harsh buzzer. Sofia’s pitying gaze as she’d shook her head. He had been overcome with a confused, detached rage that had coloured his vision and overwhelmed his senses. It all became a bit vague after that. A bit blurred.

“Hey, kid, what are you in for?”

A cracked voice. Echoing off the stone. Héctor jolted out of his own thoughts and lifted his eyes. Met the gaze of a short skeleton lounging in the cot in the cell across the way. He was shirtless and wearing faded, torn pants. Resting on his ribcage was an old cowboy hat. His bones were a dull white. The usual swirls and dots of decorations on his skull were still visible, but faded to pastels.

“I punched a guard,” Héctor said. His voice seemed to be coming from a great distance, echoing slightly. “They wouldn’t let me over the bridge so I punched him.”

The skeleton laughed. A hoarse laugh, like wind rattling through reeds. As he did his ribcage jittered as though the articulations holding him together were loose.

“Ah, you’ll learn.” That laugh again. He sat up and leaned towards Héctor. “You look too fresh to be in here, amigo.”

Héctor looked down at his bright white bones. Clean, unmarked. The joints solid and sturdy. Clenched his hands into fists and lowered his eyes. “No photo on an ofrenda,” he said with a shrug. “No crossing the bridge. No seeing my family.”

“They still remember you though.” The skeleton popped off an arm. Casually, as though it was no big deal. The detached limb scooted into Héctor’s cell and held a hand up for a handshake. “Chicharrón. Nice to meet you, amigo.”

Héctor glanced at the hand. Then up at the skeleton. Cautiously, unsure how to manage this dismemberment, he put a hand in the one pointing at him, and was surprised by a firm handshake.

“Héctor.” He picked up the arm. Examined it closely. Beside his own bones, held in his grip, the grey of Chicharrón’s was much more obvious. “What do you mean they still remember me?”

“You wouldn’t be so solid if they did.” The arm bounced out of Héctor’s hands. Hopped on its palm over the corridor and back onto Chicharrón’s shoulder. He flexed it, rotated it. Made sure it was sitting comfortably. “Like me, amigo. My grandson was only little when I died, so his memories of me have faded. He still thinks of me occasionally. Every so often.” He shrugged. “But my son never put my photo on the ofrenda, and so m’ijo doesn’t think to do it either. I think he’s telling his kid about me though. I feel stronger sometimes.”

“Did you try to get over too?”

“Eh, in a way.” Chicharrón grinned. “I’d like to see my great grand kid. Maybe hear the stories he’s telling about me. Or the story. Whichever.”

“How are you so relaxed about it, Cheech?”

Chicharrón let out a surprised burst of laughter. His ribs rattled alarmingly. “Cheech! Ah, that’s a good one, amigo!” He wiped his eye. Bared crooked teeth in a grin. Héctor grinned back, unable to help himself.  “The final death happens to everyone eventually. No point stressing about it.” A brief pause, then, “You got a place to go when the sun rises?”

“Yeah.” _For now_ , he thought but didn’t say. Without offerings to supplement his livelihood (deadlihood?) he wasn’t going to be able to hold onto his little studio forever.

Cheech seemed to read his thoughts. Offered a reassuring smile.

“If you ever need a place to go, there’re a lot of us. You come by the big bridge sometime, ask for Cheech, I’ll set you right.” 

The guard came by. Unlocked Chicharrón’s cell.

“Thanks, compadre.” Cheech saluted. Gave Héctor another grin. “Remember, amigo. If ever you need, we’re there for you.”

And then he left Héctor alone, overwhelmed with the friendliness that the faded skeleton had shown him. Uncertain what to do with this information. Hoping beyond hope that he would never need to act on it.


	5. 1929-1938

When Imelda turned 30, she found her first grey hair. It snaked from her left temple, a muted silver that shone like a spotlight from the dark curtain of her hair. She considered pulling it out, then brushed her hair back. Pinned it back on that side. Examined herself in the mirror. The style emphasised the grey, pointed to it, almost. She looked distinguished and refined. Stern and stony.

She didn’t like seeing herself like that. Uncertainly, she smiled at the mirror. Watched gentle lines crinkle beside her eyes. The smoothing of her forehead. She looked years younger. But the smile brought back too many memories, and she pushed them away as she flattened her lips again.

* * *

Héctor celebrated his 10 year death day by hanging outside the Marigold Grand Central Station, positioning himself on the steps and playing simple, reassuring melodies on the guitar. Keeping an eye out. He didn’t expect to see anyone from Santa Cecilia, not really. But he hoped. Hoped to see a face he recognised. Hoped he could get some news from his hometown.

He wasn’t sure what he’d asked if he did see someone he knew. He would ask about Imelda, obviously. If she’d forgiven him. Spoken of him. When it came to Coco, he really didn’t know where to start.

He practiced as he played. Formed the questions into the first song he’d fully written since his death. A quick rapid-fire melody, underpinned with the tap of his heel on the marble step. Questions revolving around her health, her height, her smile. If her soul burned with the passion of her mother, if her heart beat with the rhythm of her father. If she remembered him.

* * *

When Coco turned 14 she started to sneak out of the house, to head down to Mariachi Plaza to dance and enjoy the music that played. She never quite dared to sing along, but the words swelled in her chest and filled her heart. Some of the songs were familiar, achingly so, but she never quite understood how.

When her Mama caught her the first time she hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and said she was only shining shoes. Here in Mariachi Plaza was where they were needed the most. And if she danced it was only ever a few steps to demonstrate the quality of Rivera boots. Of course she never sang, Mama. Of course she would never, Mama. Yes, that man was dead to her, Mama. And she cast a longing look over her shoulder as Imelda dragged her home.

* * *

Héctor only just managed to hold onto his studio. It was only by a thread, and he had to lend out the playing area during evenings to a blues group that needed a small, intimate rehearsal space. He would sit outside, usually drinking coffee, listening to jazzy beats echoing around his space. He quite liked the blues. It was smooth and easy to listen to. The skeletons who leased his living room had spent a fair amount of time in New Orleans, a town so wonderfully musical and alive that Héctor wished he could visit.

He sipped his coffee thoughtfully. Looked up at the sky. The Land of the Dead was brightly light, shining with millions of billions of coloured lanterns. But overhead a huge moon hung low in the sky. Giving off a gentle silver glow. He glanced over his shoulder. Debated how likely it was they would hear him over the standing bass. Decided to risk it.

He looked up at the moon. Smiled to himself. Tried to imagine his girl as a teenager. Tall and gangly, like he’d been maybe. Still growing into her limbs. She’d have Imelda’s inscrutable smile. The same innate confidence. He missed her. All he wanted was to see her again.

Softly, almost under his breath, he looked at the moon and sang her lullaby. Like he did every night. At the same time.

* * *

At 16, Coco had stopped singing her lullaby. It was a song for babies, after all, and she was almost a full grown woman. In fact, it was around this time she got really angry at her Papa. She switched from defending him to every jab and cruel word from her peers to staying silent. Avoiding the issue. They all had fathers who came home. Who interacted with them. Who seemed to give a shit.

She couldn’t stop dancing though. Channelling her anger through the steps. Through the hard connection of her boots on the pavement. Of the sharp twisting movements she made. No one dared try to dance with her. She was too fierce, too vital. To stray close would be to be burned by her rage.

* * *

Héctor ended up in gaol roughly one year out of three. Usually when there was a new guard or clerk on call. It wasn’t so much that he reacted with anger. Not anymore. He was firmly in the bargaining stage. Now whenever the buzzer flashed he would beg: lean against the desk and promise the world, the moon, sky and stars. Everything and anything that he could think of.

It never did any good, of course. The ones who’d been at this as long as he had usually cut him some slack. Sofia could even sometimes talk him down, send him back through the checkpoint with his metaphorical tail between his legs.

Sometimes when he was in the cell, Cheech would be there. Other times he wouldn’t be. It was their only interaction. The only time they talked. But Cheech remembered his name and asked how he was going every time. Made comments about the clean bright designs on Héctor’s face and the sturdiness of his bones. Cracked jokes that made Héctor forget he was in a cell for the night.

It meant a lot. Having a friend.


	6. 1939

Coco sighed and twisted a few threads of hair together. Tangled them. Forced her fingers through to straighten them out again. Imelda wasn’t paying much attention. She was busy explaining how to work the leather to make it soft. How to stitch it together so the seams held firm. Coco knew how to do most of this already. She had been watching since she was a little girl, observing each step. Still, it was nice to be included.

“Do you understand, Coco?”

“Yes, Mama.” A very teenaged eye-roll. Imelda knocked on the table and narrowed her eyes. Commanded attention.

“Ay, m’ija, don’t you lie to me.”

“I wouldn’t, Mama.” Coco crossed her fingers under the table and offered a winning smile. It sat comfortably on her face, beneath high cheekbones and above a sharp chin. “Can I go down to the market? I want to get some shopping done before I get started for the day.”

Imelda narrowed her eyes. Raised one eyebrow. Scanned Coco’s face. Eventually decided that she wasn’t lying.

“Fine. But don’t be too long.”

Coco laughed. Leaned forward and hugged her mother, who hugged her back tight. Imelda was a strong woman. Fiercely protective. Kind and loving. The sort of person who did everything with her whole heart. Including doting on her daughter. 

Coco squeezed her mother once more, shot up from the table and darted from the room. From the shop. Towards Mariachi Plaza.

Music was playing there. As always. Reverberating around the square. Pulling at something deep inside her. Fast chords and exciting little flourishes and driving rhythms. As she entered the plaza she saw a poster for the newest Ernesto de la Cruz movie plastered to the wall. Her stomach twisted at the sight. Unsure why, she approached it. Ran her fingers over the paper that was rippled with glue. In it Ernesto was flashing a sultry look towards the audience. Posed with his famous guitar. Fingers positioned on the frets. In the background a woman with dark hair and an adoring smile on her face leaned over a balcony. She looked so much like Mama that Coco’s stomach tightened.

She only knew the name of Ernesto de la Cruz from these posters. She never saw the films themselves. Considering how oddly nauseous the man made her she didn’t know if she could actually sit through the whole feature.

She slapped her palm over his face. Cast another look at the woman who could have been Imelda’s twin. Turned away. The Mariachi knew her by name at this point. Most of the regulars did. The eligible bachelors watched as she approached. She had learned to ignore them, for the most part. They didn’t interest her. She had no urge to dance with them, let alone have dinner or date or marry.

There was only really one man who had caught her eye. He had a wispy little moustache and kind eyes. An uncertain little smile that made her heart flutter just the slightest bit. He was a gentle soul, and, though he always watched with admiration, he’d never _ever_ danced with her. Well today she was going to change that. 

“Julio!” She spotted him on the opposite side the plaza, made a beeline straight for him. He jumped, almost out of his skin, and stared at her with wide, frightened eyes. “How about a dance, chaparrito?” She winked. He turned the most delightful shade of red.

With a laugh, she grabbed his hand. Felt it squeeze around hers. Pulled him into an open space. The music didn’t stop. His feet found the rhythm. She kept a hold of his hands, dancing close to him. Laughing. Smiling. Enjoying the way his body relaxed and his hands gripped hers. How his head tilted back and their gaze locked.

She didn’t love him, not yet. But there was the spark of something there. Something strong and beautiful. He made her happy in a way none of the other suitors could. And dancing with him just confirmed what her heart knew. He was in step with her. He was kind and sweet and wonderful.

When the song finished she bent and kissed him. Firmly on the mouth. Felt him freeze, then soften. His hands squeezing hers. Not winding to her waist, not pressing on her lower back. Just his fingers intertwining with hers. Gently. Tenderly. Making her feel special. Respected. Cherished. 

Yes. He would do just fine.

* * *

For the first time, as he sat gently strumming a never-ending melody that shifted from key to key in no clear pattern, he got a request that he had no idea how to fulfil.

“Can you play Remember Me?” she asked. A new skeleton. Still clearly getting used to her fleshless form. Still pressing her hand against her spine in an unconscious gesture. Feeling the gaps between her ribs with searching phalanxes.  “By Ernesto de la Cruz?”

The name sent a cold shock through him. Rattled him through to the core. His fingers spasmed, causing a loud discordant twang from his guitar. He corrected it immediately, but her eyes had already widened and she’d glanced at the person with her. Her father? Her brother? In the Land of the Dead it was hard to tell sometimes.

“Sorry, señorita, I don’t know it.”

He hoped this was true. He _prayed_ it was. But somehow, deep in his soul, he knew the truth. He could still hear Ernesto’s voice, lecturing him almost.

_Just so long as you don’t play that one for the baby. It’s too slow, Héctor. Maybe if you upped the tempo, added some flourishes…_

He shook his head. Offered a winning smile. “Anything else I can play for you?”

“No, that’s fine.” She smiled at him. One hand now probing the space between her vertebra. “You should learn that one though. It was his biggest hit when I died. So catchy, so romantic… I’m sure you’ll have a lot of people requesting it.”

“Thank you for the advice.” He smiled and strummed a few bars of a song that was sweet and simple. She linked arms with her companion and they walked away. Didn’t look back. Héctor managed to play only a few more chords before his fingers stopped cooperating and he had to pack up. Sling the guitar around his back. Head back to the Arts District. 

He thought about Ernesto. It was wonderful that his friend had fulfilled his dream. That he was playing for strangers, the way he’d always hoped. But _Remember Me_? Was it just a coincidence? The song Ernesto had detested, had forbidden him to play. Anything slow. Sweet. Heartfelt. It had no place in his show.

He shook his head. Forced the thought from his mind. He didn’t have time to worry about what was happening in the Land of the Living. He had to focus on here and now.

Okay. Time to concentrate. He had to get over the bridge this year. Coco was 21. The age he had been when he died. He had to see her and see the similarities, and the differences. Maybe she had a baby of her own. A tiny version of her she would sing and dance with. He needed to know, to see his family. Cajoling wasn’t working. Begging wasn’t working. Anger was definitely not working. It was time for a new plan.

As he approached his studio he bumped into a new skeleton. A short woman with brilliant red hair and horn-rimmed glasses. She stumbled and he caught her arm.

“Sorry, señora, apologies.”

She pulled her arm out of his grip. Glowered at him.

“And you are?”

“Héctor? I live in the studio here.”

She adjusted her glasses. Studied him. “Cecilia.” She didn’t extend a hand. Didn’t give any sign of formal greeting. “I’m moving into this one here.” She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “Maybe watch where you’re going in future, eh?”

“Yes, of course, I’m sorry.” He grinned. “It was nice to meet you, Cecilia. I should go and get ready for Día de Muertos.”

“Ceci.” Now she did reach out a hand. He shook it, uncertainly. A smirk touched her lips and softened her features. “Only my grandmother calls me Cecilia.”

He smiled, didn’t point out that that was how she’d introduced herself at first, went inside. Propped his guitar against the wall.

He pulled off his jacket. Lay it gently over a chair. Looked closely at the bones and intricate nest of his shoulder joint. Moved his arm. Watched the ball of his humerus roll. Ignored an odd yawning nausea, gripped his arm and yanked it hard. Felt a pulling. Like his joint was made of elastic.  Then it popped free. Easily. Painlessly. He stared down at his arm with mute shock. Flexed his wrist and watched as the hand moved with a fluid ease. Waved at himself. Tried not to stagger as the reality hit him.

He was really going to do this. He was really going to pull himself apart.

Momentarily overwhelmed, he thought of Coco’s face. The round cherubic cheeks that he’d kissed gently on the night he’d left. The bright shining eyes. The adoring smile. Steeled his resolve and started work on his other arm.

 

The joints were strong. Firm. It took a lot of effort to break the invisible connection between his bones. It didn’t hurt though. Just felt indescribably weird.

And, just as Chicharrón had been able to, he could control each individual bone. Could hop back and forth. As he undid each joint he congregated beneath the couch. Finally it was only his head left. Rolling back and forth. It made him feel a bit sick, but would be worth it. If he was subtle about it he would be through the checkpoint before they even realised he was there.

Now for the hard part. He rolled bit by bit out from under the couch. Concentrated. Imagined himself whole again. With rapid clicks his bones snapped back together. An almost musical trill, like someone playing a scale on a xylophone, as his spine rearticulated. His body bent, grabbed his head, and secured it to his neck. A spin to make sure it was really on. His world rapidly whirling 360 degrees.

He looked down. Squinted as he checked out each joint. No mistakes he could see. Feet both present and on the right way. Spine gently curving in the expected directions. Ribs all accounted for.

A soaring hope building in his chest. This could actually work. He might actually make it across.

He practiced a few more times. Made sure he could put himself back together again quick enough. He’d need to be whole to cross the bridge. He wouldn’t be able to navigate so many parts through with total confidence. Best to just get through the checkpoint then reconstitute. Avoid the guards as best he could. Get over the bridge. From there he would figure it out.

It was a good plan, in theory. In practice he managed to roll past the checkpoint. Hop his bones through and onto the platform. However, when he tried to join back together one arm didn’t click into place. He felt a firm grip around his wrist and swivelled in horror. One of the guards. Standing and staring with an open mouth at Héctor’s disembodied forearm. At the fingers trying to pry her grip open.

Forget it. No time for that. He could see Imelda and Coco sans an arm. He turned to the bridge. Started to run towards it. Felt every jolting movement through his bones. A peculiar stretching as his arm fell further behind him. He almost made it to the bridge. The smell of marigold petals was strong and sweet and overpowering. But then someone stepped in front of him. Caught him in a tight grip. He felt his arm drawing closer. Still stuck in the firm grip of the guard.

He hung in their grip, disappointed and furious and already thinking about the next year.

Okay. This wasn’t going to work. He was going to have to be a bit more creative…


	7. 1940-1941

Julio was terrified to meet Imelda. He’d met her before, of course. In a town as small as Santa Cecilia, it was impossible to not have met her before. Particularly as prominent a figure as she was. But it had only been very briefly, and he had never had the guts to actually speak to her. Then, when he officially started courting Coco, he’d asked his own mother what Imelda was like.

“Such a tragic story,” she’d said, her cheeks turning pink with glee. Gabriela was a woman who loved a good story. Even more so when it involved her neighbours. She flapped a piece of fabric over the wooden frame of a simple dining chair and started to hammer it in place as she spoke. “Her husband abandoned her, you know. Left her and the baby all alone. Chose music, you see. You’ve heard of the Riveras ban on music?”

That shook him. He had not heard of any such thing. Coco had never mentioned it. Not in their dances. Wait, how could she be dancing if there was a ban on music?

“No, Mama, I haven’t.”

“Oh _everyone_ knows about it,” she said with a dismissive flap of her hand. The flap turned into an expert twist as she folded the corner of the cloth and hammered it in place. “Anyway, Imelda never remarried and she started up the shoe store all by herself. Well I suppose her brothers helped a little. And no one can even mention her husband’s name!”

Curiosity then, a brief spark that flittered in the back of his mind. “What was his name, Mama?”

“Oh I don’t remember. It was years ago, m’ijo.”

“Right, of course.”

He toyed with the idea of asking Coco, then decided against it. She obviously had some secrets she wasn’t willing to share. He thanked his mother for the information, and left, heading to the Rivera hacienda. Wearing his best clothes and carrying a small bunch of daisies; Coco’s favourite.

Coco opened the door, took the flowers and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek. She took his hand, gave it a reassuring squeeze, and led him into the house. Past the workshop where two identical men were arguing about optimal length of shoelace for boots, and into a comfortable living room.

“This is my Mama Imelda,” Coco said and pushed him in front of her. Imelda looked at him with narrowed, suspicious eyes. He smiled and tried not to wish he was a million miles away.

“Ah, Julio. I’ve heard a lot about you.” She held out her hand. He shook it, and blinked at her firm grip, the silver shining at her temple, and the inquisitive gleam in her eyes as she sized him up. “Coco tells me you met at the market.”

He glanced over at Coco. Trying (and probably failing) to conceal the surprise widening his eyes. Coco smiled and shrugged, willing him with pleading eyes to not break their cover.

“Yes, that’s right.” Imelda raised her eyebrows. Realising she was expecting more, he continued. “I was buying cloth for my mother. She makes furniture, you see, and needed some to…uh…upholster an armchair?”

It wasn’t a complete lie. After dancing with Coco in Mariachi Plaza they had often spent time in the markets, her looking at leather and him seeking out cloth and wood. He’d enjoyed those simple outings far more than he had any right to. It was part of the reason he had decided to pursue something further with Socorro Rivera. She was someone who made the mundane exciting.

“Furniture?” Imelda asked. She seemed intrigued by this. “Has she taught you any of her trade?”

“Yes.” Hesitating now. “Though she won’t let me try to find my own designs.”

 “A shame indeed.” She glanced towards Coco, briefly. An unspoken conversation passing between them in the briefest instant. When she looked back at him Imelda smiled. It made her look years younger, but no less imposing.  “Would you, perhaps, like to try your hand at shoe making?” 

And of course he did. Because making shoes meant being in the workshop, and the workshop was where Coco was. And he would do anything to spend more time with her.

* * *

Héctor was still leaning outside the station. Waiting for something that he had given up hope for. Strumming idle, infinite melodies. It took a second for him to realise that he wasn’t alone. That there was a girl with wide brown eyes still glimmering with tears, watching his skeletal hands smoothly shifting as he played.

He froze mid-chord. Looked down at this tiny little skeleton, still wearing the pink embroidered nightdress she’d been wearing when she’d died.

The girl wiped at her eyes and blinked innocently up at him. “Why’d you stop playing, señor?” she asked. Her voice was choked with tears that had already been forgotten, so intrigued was she by this new and interesting development.

Overcoming the shock, he bent, crouching down with his guitar in front of his knees, and smiled at her. “Well, I need a song to play, niña, do you have a favourite?”

And she smiled back up at him. So radiant and excited that his spirit cracked just a little bit. She was maybe six? Seven? And it was too easy to imagine Coco in her, what she must have been like at that age.

“Poco Loco!” she cried, bouncing with excitement. Her feet were bare, he noticed, and had a brief, morbid moment of wondering how she’d died. "By de la Cruz!"

He hesitated. The name of it brought back Imelda. His proposal. Their wedding. It was upbeat and exciting. Hopefully that meant Ernesto hadn’t changed it too much. In that time an older skeleton, white hair coiled in a twisted braid behind her, came out of the door, puffing and wheezing.

“M’ija, you can’t run off like that. This place is huge, we don’t want to lose you.”

“Abuelita, he’s going to play Poco Loco!” The girl looked at him, eyes huge and hopeful, and he glanced at her grandmother. She looked tired. Rounded cheekbones and purple crow’s feet. He’d never seen skull marks that mimicked the wrinkles she must have had in life before. She eyed him, suspicious, then nodded.

“Just one song, m’ija, then we have to go find your grandpa and settle you in, okay?”

“Okay!”

Héctor watched this exchange. His soul aching for his girl. Then, with a grin, he started plucking out the tune. The girl laughed and started to dance. Her nightdress twirling around her. She sang along, out of tune and late on the verses, but when the song finished he lowered his guitar and applauded her.

“Good job, niña! You are a wonderful singer!”

She blushed. Green and gold and blue glowing from the delicate swirls and dots beneath her eyes. Suddenly embarrassed, she slipped behind her grandmother and buried her face in the loose purple cloth.

“Thank you,” the grandmother mumbled to him as she pressed a churro into his hand. “She was inconsolable until she saw you. Skeletons are…frightening for a child.”

Taken aback, he accepted the offering, slipping it into his pocket. Then, crouched again, leaned slightly so he could meet the gaze of the one eye she’d peeked from her grandma’s skirt.

“Time to go home for you, niña. Your abuelita will take good care of you, okay?”

“Okay…” A short pause where the older skeleton gathered her skirts and took the girl’s hand. “You played it really good, señor. Almost better than de la Cruz.”

Then they left. Leaving Héctor both pleased and absolutely shaken by what she’d said. Almost? What did almost mean? With a huff, he leaned back on the wall and started playing the endless cycle of chords again.

And from that day he seemed to draw children. He had no idea why. Playing in the Arts District he’d only ever had audiences of adults. But now, outside the station the newly dead children flocked to him as soon as they were through the doors. Running up and watching with wide, shocked eyes (invariably glimmering with tears already forgotten) as his skeletal hands formed chords and strummed at the strings. And every time he would crouch down, smile. Sometimes offer his hand so that they could touch and feel how the joints shifted. Then ask for their favourite song. If they didn’t have one or know one, he’d play Poco Loco, the upbeat chords enough to get them wiggling even if they didn’t actually dance.

He even played Remember Me for them. The jaunty, flashy abomination that Ernesto had twisted it into. He played it for these tiny children, with tears in their eyes and a wobble in their voice, because it made them smile. And making kids happy, it seemed, was the only thing that would mend the rifts playing that song in that way would make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the 'Station Clerk!Héctor AU I saw on Tumblr for giving me some inspiration for his POV this chapter.


	8. 1942

It was front page news, the talk of Santa Cecilia, everyone was discussing it. No matter how hard she tried to avoid it, he was _everywhere_.

Imelda leaned out of the window, hands full of grapefruit. Taking careful aim, she lobbed them at the mourners congregating on the street corner.

“Stop that awful singing!” she shouted, and watched as the grapefruit splattered on the wall, showering the singers in pulp and juice. She didn’t want to hurt them, just scare them away from her home. They scattered appropriately. She slammed her shutters closed and stormed through the house, past Óscar and Felipe, who pointedly ignored her, and into the workroom.

Coco was sitting at the table. Smiling and laughing as Julio tried to stitch together another sandal. He kept getting the straps mixed up, forming shapes that no foot could fit inside. At least not a foot with all of its toes.

Julio was a good match for Coco: he didn’t get upset or angry or frustrated. He took things in his stride with a simple patience. Even as he ruined yet another sandal and Coco laughed until tears streamed from her eyes, he just smiled and shrugged.

Seeing them together made Imelda incredibly happy, yet ever so slightly heart sick at the same time. When she was Coco’s age she had already been abandoned by the one man she’d ever loved. The one person who had really clicked with her at every level. She was struck with a sudden aching yearning for him. His smile, his laugh, his stupid twinkling eyes. She missed every little thing about him. And the unwelcome emotion made her absolutely furious.

“Mama, what’s the matter?”

She blinked and looked down at Coco and Julio. They were both staring at her, Julio with a not inconsiderable amount of fear, Coco with concern. Imelda shook it off, a loose-boned shimmy of her arms and torso, letting the stress flow down her muscles and out of her fingers.

“Nothing, m’ija, I’m fine.” She spied a newspaper folded on the table and snatched it up, flipped it over and glowered at the handsome smiling face that took up most of the page.

“Horrible news, isn’t it?” Julio said, his tone light and casual, attention back on the sandal in his hands. “Poor man, he was so young. And to go so publically, in the middle of a show like that. Just awful.”

Coco’s eyes widened and she shot a quick elbow into Julio’s ribs. Making him cough and look at her, confused and surprised.

Imelda didn’t respond despite the rage that bubbled up in the pit of her gut. She simply refolded the paper so his face was hidden. The face she’d last seen beside Héctor’s. The man who had pointed her husband away from her and led him into a new life. A life that was so much better than being with her.

“We don’t speak of that man,” she said firmly. Tucked the paper under her arm and looked at Julio with dark, veiled eyes. “I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

Julio nodded, abashed. Coco lowered her gaze and poked a needle with the tip of her finger. Both of them avoiding her eyes. She sighed and sat at the table.

“I didn’t mean to snap. Apologies, Julio.”

“It’s okay.” He smiled at her. A genuine smile. Taking it all in his stride. No hard feelings. “I won’t mention him again.”

“Thank you.” She took the sandal from him and examined it, then shook her head. “How about you stick to solid shoes, eh? The fewer pieces hopefully the better they’ll come together.”

He grinned. Coco let out a low relieved sigh that Imelda heard but didn’t acknowledge. She dropped the paper beneath the table. Placed one foot on it. Started to instruct Julio on how to measure and cut leather into the proper shapes to make a solid shoe. 

And tried so hard to, once again, forget her husband and the best friend he had chosen over her.

* * *

Héctor leaned against the wall, playing gentle chords and singing quietly. Providing background music for those who were meeting up with their families. People being welcomed to the Land of the Dead. There had been no children today which was a relief. Though he loved playing for them and seeing them smile, it hurt his heart too. No one should have to die so young.

As he played he kept an eye on the door, seeing if he recognised anyone. It was an abstract sort of attention. He had done this for so long now he wasn’t really expecting anyone he knew to walk through that door.

Though today, for the first time, he was surprised.

Ernesto de la Cruz wandered out and onto the steps. A bit older, a bit more distinguished, with grey hair peppered at his temples. Looking dazed and shocked. He was wearing a flashy version of the suit he’d worn for performances in the early days. The suit Héctor had borrowed for the Rivera family portrait. It was embroidered with silver threads, beautiful intricate patterns gleaming in the light. Ernesto blinked at the stacked buildings, his mouth slightly open.

Héctor froze. His fingers locked in a never-ending chord. His eyes wide.

“Ernesto?”

His best friend jolted and turned to him. When he spoke, his voice was deeper than it had been in his youth, more resonant. “Do I…know you?”

Héctor lowered the guitar, leaned it against the wall without thinking or looking and approached with his hands outstretched. Was he dreaming? He must be dreaming.

“Ernesto, why did you never put up my photo?” Not angry. His voice was flat and soft. Uncertain. Seemed to come from a great distance. Ernesto’s eyes flashed with recognition. There was another emotion there, something dark and unfamiliar, but it had been too long. Too much time and distance. Ernesto had had another 21 years of life, and in that time things had clearly changed. Héctor couldn’t read his emotions anymore. Couldn’t tell what he was thinking or feeling. It added another layer of detachment on top of Héctor’s already distant mind. “Why didn’t you put my picture on your ofrenda?”

“Ofrenda?” Ernesto laughed, a little nervously. Shied away from Héctor’s hand. Straightened the jacket that hung too loose on his skeletal frame. “Héctor, I apologise. After you...” A low cough. A hand covering his mouth, his eyes flitting away. “…died I finally made it big. I didn’t have time for an ofrenda.”

A cold shock. Shuddering through his bones. Leaving him weak and trembling.

“I’m sorry, Héctor, I need to go.”

His hand reaching out. Grasping Ernesto’s arm. Digging in tight. Feeling the heavy, expensive cloth beneath his fingers. So different from the light, cheap fabric of his own jacket. From the suits they had worn on tour.

“Ernesto, please. Just a moment. Just help me understand.”

Another silence. Ernesto made no move to pull his arm free. His face was totally expressionless, almost composed in its blankness. Héctor, overwhelmed with the reality of this situation, was struggling to control himself. Feeling tears sting his eyes. His hand locked around Ernesto’s forearm.

“Go on, amigo. I’m listening.” Ernesto’s voice was gentle. Soft and soothing. Reassuring in its familiarity. It was like being a kid again, when there had been only one person in the whole world who had been kind. Compassionate. Who had seen him shivering in the rain and given him shelter. Comfort. Warm clothes and hot food.

The idea of his songs never even occurred to him. Of asking Ernesto why he’d changed so many things and used so many others with no apparent credit. He was so focused on his family and why he wouldn’t have been able to cross the bridge.

“Imelda never put my photo up either,” he said finally. “She must have been furious when you told her. She still hasn’t forgiven me.” A brief silence. “Ernesto, can you tell me how she was? When you told her? When you brought my body back to Santa Cecilia?”

Ernesto cleared his throat again. Now pointedly avoiding Héctor’s eyes. “I’m sorry, old friend. I had to continue on, I couldn’t go back to Santa Cecilia. Not when I was so close to my dream. I had to keep performing. You know what it’s like."

That was a punch to the gut. The words left Héctor winded and gasping for air. His grip loosened enough that Ernesto could easily slip his arm free.

“You…left me? In Mexico City? Alone…?”

Ernesto was already walking away. One hand lifted. Some skeletons on the street clearly recognised him and had started to form a crowd. If he spoke, his parting words were lost beneath the rumbling chorus of excited fans.

And, still standing on the step, Héctor watched him leave. Alone and unrecognised. Unable to fathom what Ernesto had said. The words kept repeating in his mind, but his brain refused to comprehend them.

“But…what happened…to my body?”


	9. 1944-1948

Coco and Julio were married in autumn. Coco wore a long, flowing dress of lace overlaying cotton, embroidered with delicate flowers, made for her by her uncles. She didn’t carry a bouquet of flowers, instead she’d fashioned a bunch of fallen leaves into floral shapes, pinching them together with twine and forming vivid orange, red and yellow blossoms. Julio wore a white suit that flattered his dark skin and already greying moustache.

It was a wedding with no music, no dancing, no singing. Only the murmur of conversation and the whisper of the wind.

And though, or perhaps because, it was the polar opposite to her own wedding, Imelda was so happy to see it. To see the light in their eyes when they looked at each other. To see each small cherished touch. It warmed her heart and almost brought her to tears.

Felipe put a hand on her shoulder and Óscar stood beside her. Together they exclaimed their pride, their joy at seeing Coco so happy, both carefully avoiding reminiscing about her wedding. Avoiding the topic with practiced skill. She saw this, recognised it, appreciated the effort.

But of course, Héctor was not far from her mind. She remembered her wedding and their dance in the rain. His voice and his touch and his kiss. She remembered wishing her mama could have been there. Feeling Coco move for the first time and the spike of joy she’d felt. The memory was bitter sweet.

As the sun began to set and a cold breeze picked up, Coco pulled her aside and hugged her tight, thanking her for everything. Imelda, still grappling with the emotional turmoil inside her, returned the hug, embracing her daughter. And, for the first time in a long time, she mentioned Héctor aloud. Apologised to Coco that her father wasn’t here, that he missed the wedding.

Coco smiled and kissed Imelda’s cheek. Cradled her face in both hands, wiping away a tear with the ball of her thumb. Unaware just how like Héctor she looked in that moment.

“I love you, Mama. And today was perfect. Even without him.”

* * *

Héctor tried to get in touch with Ernesto, tried desperately to talk to his oldest friend, to the closest thing he had to family in the Land of the Dead. But it was impossible.

Soon after being welcomed to the Land of the Dead, Ernesto was recognised as a celebrity. Not left to wander the Arts District hoping desperately for some guidance, he was, instead, ushered to the highest level of society. His music paved the way to a luxury penthouse, then to his own personal tower. It crisscrossed into the skyline, made of white marble and lit by wandering spotlights.

It was beautiful. And impenetrable.

Héctor abandoned the station, stopped lingering outside and hoping to see someone he knew. Abandoned the children who had sometimes come back to see him play. Now he loitered outside the tower, watching for any sign of Ernesto, hoping that one day his friend would come down. Would talk to him. He had tried to get up there, tried to convince the security guards that it was okay, he knew Ernesto, they went way back. Back to the Land of the Living even. Couldn’t they please just let him in?

No. They could not.

They took one look at his torn, faded clothing, crossed their arms and raised eyebrow ridges and turned him away. Time after time. There was no convincing them.

And Ernesto was avoiding him. Had to be. He’d avoid coming out by himself. He’d be in a group of people, and never seemed to hear Héctor’s voice in the crowd. Begging for a moment of his time. Just to talk. Just to help him understand.

Because he needed to understand. He had spent time now, listening and asking around. It was clear that Ernesto had only played the songs that had been in the leather-bound notebook when Héctor died. In all the extra time that Ernesto had had in the Land of the Living, another lifetime of Héctor’s over again, he had apparently never written his own songs. Never put his own words to paper. 

That hurt. Certainly. It gouged at his chest and left rifts of sharp pain. But it was nothing compared to the idea of being left behind. Of being unmourned. He just couldn’t understand it.

And he wasn’t going to get the chance any time soon.

* * *

It took time for Coco to fall pregnant. They didn’t actively try, but they weren’t taking any precautions either. It just wasn’t happening. Eventually, over two years after the wedding, her period didn’t show up. She didn’t have any nausea or vomiting. She could still dance and work and eat all her favourite foods. But still, her period was late.

Imelda, seeing her in the workshop one day, sat across the table and smiled a knowing smile.

“Anything to tell me, m’ija?”

Coco jolted, stabbed the wicked curved needle through the leather and into her finger. She yelped and threw the boot and needle away from her reflexively. Stuck her finger in her mouth and sucked, tasting the metallic tang of blood, looking guiltily at her mother.

“Hmm? What? Sorry?”

Imelda raised an eyebrow, reached over and pulled Coco’s hand free. Wrapped a clean piece of cotton around her fingertip and applied gentle pressure.

“I asked if you had any news,” she said. Simply. As though she already knew everything. Though that was impossible. Coco’s period was only two weeks late. It wasn’t sure. Not yet.

But that wasn’t quite right. Only two weeks late, feeling absolutely normal. But she knew. There was life flickering deep inside her. The tiniest flutter of cells dividing and multiplying, and becoming something new and utterly different.

And by the look on Imelda’s face she knew it too.

“Maybe?”

“Have you talked to Julio yet?” Imelda pulled the cotton off Coco’s finger, examined it closely, made sure it wasn’t still oozing.

“Not yet.” Coco straightened her spine and lifted her chin. “I wasn’t sure.”

Imelda’s smile softened. The harsh lines carved too soon at the corners of her mouth and in her forehead evened out, became delicate. In a flash Coco could see the woman her mother should have been. If her life had been easier. If fate had been kinder.

“Ay, m’ija, you are glowing. I can see it, I’m sure he can too.” Imelda leaned forward, wrapped Coco in a hug that was gentle and loving. Proud and hopeful. It filled Coco’s heart with warmth.

“Okay, Mama, I’ll tell him tonight.” A brief pause, her breath halting ever so slightly in her throat. “Mama…when you told Papa that you were pregnant…how did he react?”

Imelda’s arms stiffened. Her spine locked in place with an almost audible click. Coco felt a burst of regret and guilt. She hadn’t meant to upset Imelda. She just wanted to know this one thing. This one little bit of their history. Of her father.

Imelda pulled away and looked down, clearly grappling with her own thoughts. Eventually she said in a clipped tone, “He was…happy. Very happy.” Another long pause. Coco sat, her eyes wide, not wanting to break the silence. It was the first positive thing she could remember hearing about her father. It propped up the old, faded memories in the back of her mind. The memories of warmth and love and dancing brown eyes so full of happiness that she’d felt like the most important person in the world. Of the words to her old lullaby. The one she hadn’t sung for over a decade. Eventually a bittersweet little smile pulled on Imelda’s lips. Her eyebrows slanted and her shoulders slumped just the slightest bit. When she spoke next the shortness had left her tone. Now her voice was soft, wistful, full of memory and longing. “He was very excited to be a father.”

Silence stretched between them. Then Imelda shook her head. Snapped her shoulders back. Dashed away the glimmer of a tear at the corner of one eye. Turned and beamed at her daughter. No sign of that brief softness that had overcome her. Now it was all joy and pride and the backbone of steel.

“Mama, I…”

“Hush, m’ija. You go find Julio and tell him now. He will be so happy to hear, I know it.”

A brief flash of that same wistful longing, swimming in Imelda’s eyes, making them darken to a deep, lustrous brown. Coco, unable to bear seeing the emotion there, nodded dumbly. Turned away from her mother. Almost fled from the table, heading off to find Julio.

* * *

Héctor lost his studio. He could no longer afford the upkeep. That year, for the first time, he approached the big bridge, the one near the station, that linked a bustling market to the Arts District. Chalked on the dark stones were crude skeletons, floating through the air, suspended on wings of marigold petals. It hurt his heart to look at them. These murals of hopelessness and longing.

He averted his eyes and walked under the bridge. It was a ramshackle town: crudely constructed bungalows squatting beside a crooked winding pathway, all on rickety stilts that descended into dark, shallow water. Alebrijes, brightly coloured frogs oversized rabbit ears and fish with broken wings flitted around in the shallows.

He navigated the bridge with uncertain steps. Vaguely aware of suspicious eyes watching from each bungalow he passed.

“Hello?”

His voice bounced back from cheap wood and hard stone. A frog alebrije with a crooked scorpion tail let out a frightened croak and hopped into the water. There was no other movement. Héctor picked at the fraying threads of his torn jacket and looked nervously around.

“I’m looking for Chicharrón? He said I could find him here?”

There was another long silence. An uncomfortably long silence. He unpicked a few more threads and let out a low sigh, turned to leave, hopelessness sinking an icy chill through his bones.

Then a low creak, catching his attention. He twisted, so sharply that the bridge beneath him rocked and almost sent him off balance.

“Wait, amigo. Don’t go.” Cheech stepped towards him, looking more faded than last time they’d met. A cowboy hat was perched on his skull. He leaned forward, bracing his hands on his knees, and wheezed for a moment. “Apologies, Héctor, I was asleep. Tía Julia woke me.” Another faded skeleton, a woman with dark hair tied in a severe bun, eyed him from the doorway.

“Tía…?”

Cheech grinned, stepped forward and grabbed Héctor’s hand, pulled him towards the bungalow. Héctor resisted for a moment, but followed when he felt Chicharrón’s wrist start to stretch.

“Familia! This is Héctor, he’s like us.”

“He looks too fresh to be like us.” Another faded woman. The designs on her skull were empty indentations with no colour to them at all. Her bones rattled and shifted as she spoke. Several vertebrae were crushed into wedge shapes and one of her upper arms was roughly stuck together with tight fraying bandages.

“Ay, Tía, we were all fresh once.” Cheech dropped an eyelid in a wink. She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, but didn’t argue further. “Come, amigo, we’ll find a place for you.”

Héctor nodded dumbly and allowed Cheech to guide him deeper into Shantytown. To his new home. Among his new family.


	10. 1949-1955

Elena looked like the perfect combination of Coco and Julio. She had his broad, kind face and her bright, intelligent eyes. From the moment she could express herself she showed the same steely backbone of all Rivera women, by pushing away Óscar and Felipe’s hands when they tried to help her walk, by silently glowering her displeasure at the mashed vegetables that were presented to her.

When she was three, Coco fell pregnant again. This time she was struck with terrible nausea, spent her days vomiting and gagging at the smell of food. And as the pregnancy went on the nausea got worse and worse. Small sips of black tea and dry crackers were all she could manage to keep down.

Elena, not quite understanding, declared war on whatever was making her mother so ill. She glared with undisguised suspicion as Coco’s stomach grew. As she shrank. At seven months, her pregnancy stood so clearly against her skin that every slight rolling movement from within was visible.

Julio tended to Coco’s every want, brought her lukewarm tea every hour and gently rubbed her back and shoulders, releasing tension from the tight muscles. The doctor visited every day, gave her tonics and tinctures and salves, but none of it seemed to help. Eventually she ended up in the clinic, hooked up to fluids through a needle in her arm.

Elena, brought to her mother’s side, poked at the firm bulge of her pregnancy and hissed quiet threats. “How dare you hurt my mama?” she’d growl in a voice so deep it made Coco shudder with repressed laughter.

Of course, when she did finally go into labour three weeks early, it was the middle of the night. The doctor was there immediately, alert and ready to help. Julio came a bit later, bleary-eyed and exhausted. He gripped her hand and whispered reassuring words into her ear.

Victoria was born at four am. Initially flat and sickly, as soon as she was placed in Julio’s arms she stirred, took a deep breath, and lost the bluish tinge around her lips. Opened light brown eyes that swam with confusion and outrage.

More of that backbone. More of that stubbornness. Coco, exhausted but well, and Julio exchanged a nervous look, concerned how Elena would react when faced with the embodiment of Coco’s suffering over the past eight months.

Rosita, Julio’s sister who had just recently started making shoes alongside the rest of the Rivera’s, brought Elena in on the second day.

Of course, they needn’t have worried: the moment Elena set eyes on baby Victoria she was utterly lost, absolutely in love. She sat on Julio’s lap and watched with wide eyes as he held the tiny baby in his hands in front of her.

“So little,” she whispered in awe, touching her hands to Victoria’s. Giggled when Victoria reflexively gripped them tight, pulled them to her little mouth and tried her damnedest to gum on them. Elena giggled and Coco breathed a sigh of relief. Then, firmly, the toddler said, “My baby.”

“No, Elena,” Julio said softly, smiling. “She’s your sister. She’s our baby.”

“My baby,” Elena said again. Insisted. And that determined gleam in her eye, the Rivera steel spine, shone through and they knew there was no point arguing.

* * *

Héctor couldn’t quite get comfortable in Shantytown. He was too loud, too vibrant, too determined that he was going to get across that bridge. The other inhabitants had accepted their lot in death, that they were soon to be forgotten. But Héctor couldn’t accept it. He refused to give up on his one wish. To cross the bridge, to see his wife and his daughter. It was the only thing he wanted and he would stop at nothing to get there.

He knew how this was perceived. He was stepping outside the accepted behaviour. And worse, he was relying on the offerings of others to do. Borrowing clothes when the cheap material of his suit finally gave way and fell apart. Using Chicharrón’s guitar to busk for the offerings of better off skeletons. It was distasteful.

They still accepted him though, called him cousin and gave him shelter. And he accepted them, as a family, in a way. He appreciated the human contact. The conversation and the sharing.

It was several years before he saw his first Final Death. Not the last. Not by any means. It was Tía Julia, the one who had woken Chicharrón on his first arrival. Her bones became more brittle, her joints looser and the dots and swirls on her skull fading to almost nothing. She withdrew from the community of Shantytown, staying in her little hut.

Héctor, under Cheech’s instruction, kept bringing her food. Usually simple plate of bread, very bland, exactly what she would be needing. On the last day he approached her hut with the plate in hand, his borrowed guitar slung around his back.

“Tía Julia?”

He knocked twice on the door, uncertain. Usually when he did this she snapped at him from inside to drop the plate and get out, but today she called in a soft, thoughtful voice, “Come in.”

He really didn’t want to. He wanted to just put the plate down and dash away. But he swallowed hard, steeled himself, and pushed the door open. It was bare inside. Dark. The uneven wooden floor was dusty and he left footprints as he approached her bed. Mattress really. It was laying by an open wall, overlooking the water. She smiled when she saw him. A weak, slow smile.

“Ah, cousin Héctor. It’s good to see you. Have a seat.”

She gestured. Her pinky finger was gone, he noticed with a dull sense of shock. Just empty air. She must have pulled it off and lacked the strength to put it back on. There were no chairs, so he sat cross-legged on the floor beside the mattress, shifting his guitar so it didn’t crash against the boards.

“I brought you some food, Tía,” he said softly. This was a place for soft voices. The air hung heavy in here: it was already a place of mourning.

“Thank you.” She made no move to take the plate. Just folded her hands on her ribcage and looked out at the water. He put it down on the floor, wincing at the hard clatter of porcelain on wood, wishing he had been more delicate. “You’re a musician, cousin, is that right?”

“Ay, Tía, I try.” He flushed, feeling the patterns on his cheeks heat up. Vaguely aware of a gentle coloured light glowing beneath his eyes.

“Do you know _Cielito Lindo_?”

He blinked. Surprised. Julia had made no secret of her distaste of his busking. Whenever he played she had folded her arms and huffed and left the area. It seemed pretty clear that she disapproved of his music and the fact that he didn’t have his own guitar to play.

“Sí. I know it.”

“Could you play it for me?” Her voice broke a little on the last word. Tears glimmered in her eyes. He’d never noticed before how dark they were, like warm earth after the rain.

Before he could answer, a golden flicker shuddered through her bones. Quick and sharp. Highlighting the lines of her face, glowing in the hollows of her joints and the line of any broken bone. She pressed her lips together, closed her eyes, held her breath.

Héctor did too, unable to help himself. His breath caught in his ribcage. The flickering settled. She relaxed and released in a low sigh. Her eyes opened and they were clear of tears.

“Please, Héctor. I can die happy if I hear that song again.”

He nodded. Pulled his guitar around to rest on his lap and made sure it was in tune. Then, unable to look at her, he found the chords and strummed them gently. Walking the pads of his phalanxes over the string so the notes were muted. Softer. He sang the words quietly, reverently almost, and looked out over the water.

She sang along, her voice surprisingly low, matching his melody. In the second verse, there was another golden shimmer from the corner of his eye and he pressed on, recognising that this was important. That he was part of Julia’s last moments in this world.

Her voice faded. Golden dust floated by him, out over the water. He finished the song with tears on his cheeks and a twisting grief wrapping around his spine. But his voice never wavered. Never choked up. It was clear to the very last note.

* * *

Imelda had grown a shadow, it seemed. No matter where she went, Elena followed. When Imelda sat at the workbench and sewed boots, Elena would play beneath the table. Making little uneven structures out of scraps of leather. Victoria was less interested, but still sat in the workroom playing with books whenever she could. She loved books. Even before she could read she would sit with them and look through the pages with a hungry curiosity, hoping to beam the knowledge right into her mind.

They were drawn to music, the pair of them. Imelda supposed it was impossible to keep them away, considering the blood they had inherited from Héctor. Victoria would sometimes hum softly to herself as she read, not even aware she was doing it. She looked so much like Héctor. She had the same facial structure and was growing taller with every day that passed. She would be the spitting image of him.

Elena took over the job of berating her for singing after seeing Imelda do it once. When she heard Victoria humming she would burst from beneath the table, snatch away the book, shake one finger in her sister’s face and scowl, “No music.”

Victoria would nod and hold out her hands. Elena would place the book back, open to Victoria’s page, ensuring there were no hard feelings. Victoria, of course, repaid the favour whenever possible. She would catch Elena singing quietly to herself, or tapping her feet in a driving rhythm beneath the table, and throw the words at her with a cheeky grin. “No music.”

No music. It could be the secondary motto of the Rivera family.

Imelda could stop music from entering their home. She could narrow her eyes in a chilling glare to anyone who dared sing or dance or hum in their home. She could slam shutters and doors and keep the music in the street. But she could never stop the pounding rhythm of her own heart. The beat that thumped in her ears and flowed into her limbs. Some days she could tamp it down. Force it deep into her subconscious where it belonged.

Some days she could not.

And on those days, she would go to the market. Find herself on the edge of Santa Cecilia. Wander out into empty fields and find a quiet secluded spot. Far from her home and her family. There she would look up at the sky, close her eyes, and sing. Softly. From the heart. Her voice changed as she aged, became deeper and coarser, but never stopped being beautiful. Never stopped filling her heart.

And she hated it.

* * *

Ernesto never stopped playing Héctor’s songs. His face was plastered everywhere, both living and dead. The same broad charismatic smile visible regardless. At first it annoyed Héctor, like the sharp sting of some unpleasant spider-bite, venom like acid dripping through his bones.

He quickly realised that this way of life was unsustainable. Anger and betrayal and sadness. It wasn’t affecting Ernesto. He was enjoying his afterlife. Throwing luxurious parties and entertaining hordes of fans, having the time of his death. Héctor lived in a tiny shack beside a rickety walkway. It opened up onto the water, like all the houses in Shantytown did, overlooking the river. And it was shortly after Día de Muertos one year when he finally decided not to be angry any more.

He looked up at the bright lights above, listened to the snappy rendition of his songs, the seductive version of his daughter’s lullaby. And started to laugh.

Let Ernesto have the songs. Let him have the fame and the glory. Héctor didn’t want any of that, all he wanted was to see his family again. He could do that without the exaltation, without the crowd fawning over him.

He wanted his wife beside him and his daughter in his arms. All he’d ever needed was in Santa Cecilia right now. It inspired him onwards, pressed him to continue attempting his crossings. As he laughed his mind whirred, continued to come up with schemes to get him past the checkpoint and over the bridge. Becoming more and more outlandish.

Next Día de Muertos he had to borrow Cheech’s minivan…


	11. 1956-1959

Coco wished she could tell her children about her Papa, but Imelda was always there, so she never could. Whenever she thought about talking about his kind eyes and the infinite caring in his voice, she remembered the pain on Imelda’s face when she’d fallen pregnant. The hurt and longing and anger. She loved her mother so much, the idea of doing anything that would hurt her further made Coco’s heart break. It was the last thing she wanted.

Still, seeing her daughters gravitate towards music and then be pushed forcibly away hurt too. Seeing them start to form melodies then jolt out of their stupor and cast cautious looks around sliced deep into her heart.

She had stopped dancing, even with Julio. Even in their private moments, they didn’t dance together. She privately mourned that part of their lives, but recognised the necessity of the loss. It hurt too much to dance now, brought up too many bitter memories.

She glanced over. Julio was breathing in long, slow breaths that soothed her soul. With a gentle movement, she spooned against his back and leaned her head on his shoulder. He shifted slightly, huffed out breath, and a sleep-warmed hand covered hers.

“Love you,” he mumbled, and there was a smile in his voice. 

Pressing a kiss to his shoulder, she nuzzled close and murmured, “I love you too, Julio.” She closed her eyes and tried to go to sleep, trying to forget about music and her father, and the heartache that the persistent memory was bringing.

* * *

The minivan did not fit through the gate. He recognised this fact as he approached at speed and was unable to stop in time.

“Get out of the way!” Leaning out of the window and waving his hand. Trying to wrestle the unresponsive steering column around. It wouldn’t shift. The van was dedicated to its course now. Héctor, who had never driven before and had only the very crudest idea of how it worked, started slamming his feet on the pedals. Missing the one in the middle, of course. Gears grinding together. The engine rising an exhausted scream.

Luckily the skeletons did dive out of the way. Those in the checkpoint already rushed through without being scanned. The clerk ducked beneath her desk. Van met gate. Rending metal and crashing stone. Jolting in the seat. His head flying off his spine. Bouncing off the windshield. Leaving a gleaming spider web of cracks.

When he woke up he was surrounded by anxious faces. And furious faces. And pitying faces.

“Is…everyone okay?” he asked. His voice muffled. His head resting on his lap. He looked up at his own torso. Winced when he noticed the almost surgically straight crack in his right lower rib. The edges abutted each other, but there was an ever so slight step in the usually smooth curve and it made him feel incredibly nauseous.

“Héctor…” It was Eduardo, one of the guards he knew quite well. Fond of apricots and songs about spring time. His voice was shaking.

“Eduardo, is anyone hurt?”

He lifted his skull. Reaffixed it to his spine. Looked anxiously around. There wasn’t anyone hurt, it seemed. A lot of shaken and shocked faces. Children in their mother’s arms. Couples holding each other tight. Eduardo pulled him out of the van. Yanking him from the seat and onto the ground.

“I’m…I’m sorry…” 

But he was already being dragged away. From the checkpoint and the bridge. He looked at the crushed minivan, the severely mangled gate, and felt a now familiar guilt coat his bones. He was not going to be able to return that to Cheech.

* * *

Óscar and Felipe loved their grandnieces.

Felipe would spend hours reading with Victoria. Sometimes he would read to her, sometimes she would read to him. Usually they read together, him doing all the deep, growly voices of men and monsters, her giggling as she lisped princesses and screeched witches.

Óscar taught Elena how to sew and stitch. She wasn’t ready for leather or shoes yet, but she adored creating things with her hands. Just like her Mama and Abuelita before her. She’d make toys with scraps of cloth. Form dogs and cats and fish, before making more complex creatures. Crabs. Squids. Dragons with wispy orange frayed flame emanating from their mouths.

It wasn’t long before Victoria was writing her own stories. Before Elena was designing her own creatures. Soon they combined their imaginations. Elena would create characters and monsters, and Victoria would send them on epic adventures. Tío Óscar and Felipe starred as the gallant duo of princes. Abuelita Imelda and Mama Coco were a team of queenly dragon slayers. And, of course, they themselves were the princesses, who invariably saved the day.

Their stories all had happy endings, where the family was safe and reunited. Their real family praised them highly. Óscar and Felipe wore the crowns Elena made for them with pride. Coco would playfully slap the stuffed dragon with her shoe as she passed. Imelda, overwhelmed with pride, would sweep her granddaughters into her arms and kiss all over their faces. Thanking them for rescuing her. 

They would giggle. Blush. Wave her away. And go back to working on their next big story.

* * *

The minivan had been a mistake. He could recognise that now. Too risky. He wanted to get over the bridge. He desperately wanted to reach his girls. But he didn’t want to hurt anyone. Plus he’d ended up in a cell for three whole months before Cheech could bail him out. No, he needed a new plan. A plan that wouldn’t put anyone else at risk.

That year, for the first time in a long time, he returned to the Arts District. Wandered towards his old studio, breathing in the colour and the music and the light here. This was where he should be. This was where his spirit came alive, truly lit up from within, but the Arts District had rejected him once. A soul with no ofrenda and no offerings couldn’t sustain an afterlife here.

He shook his head, recollected his thoughts, and pressed on. His feet found the path to his old studio. He almost went up to the front door, before shaking the memory from his bones and instead moving next door. Knocked with a confident rattle of his knuckles.

Ceci opened the door. Pins between her bony lips and cloth draped over her shoulder.

“Ceci! Sorry to bother you, could I come in?”

She eyed him, a narrowed suspicious up and down, before she recognised him.

“Ah, Héctor, I wondered where you’d gone off to.” She moved away, leaving the door open. After a moment’s hesitation, he followed. Closed the door behind him. Her apartment was bigger than his had been. A large living room with windows that caught the afternoon sun. Every available surface was covered in cloth, bolts leaning against the walls. Mannequins of varying sizes were positioned around the room, each wearing a different pinned on outfit.

In seeing all this, Héctor breathed a sigh of relief. Ceci was a tailor, he’d remembered right.

“Now, how can I help you?” She turned to him. Raised an eyebrow ridge.

“Okay…okay, okay…” He took a deep breath “This is going to sound crazy, okay, but hear me out.”

She narrowed her eyes. He offered a winning smile. The best he could muster considering how nervous he was.

“I’m listening, Héctor,” she said after a moment.

“Okay…” Still hesitating. Feeling more and more ridiculous with every moment that passed. “So, I need to get across on Día de Muertos. But I’m not up on any ofrenda.” There was a momentary flash of pity in her eyes. That flash he knew so well and hated so much. The flash that followed him everywhere here, it seemed. “So, I’m trying to…sneak my way over…” He took a deep calming breath. Grabbed Ceci’s hands and leaned forward. “I need you to dress me up like an alebrije.”

Ceci didn’t laugh. She didn’t hesitate. She just nodded, pulled her hands free, and started to size him up. And he let out a low sigh of relief when she started talking specifics. Cloth type, accessories, variation of type. She didn’t quite have the Rivera skill with fabric, but she was still talented. She used scraps of cloth, brilliant colours shining, and fashioned into a crude cloak. She cinched it tight around him and covered up his dark hair.

“Hmm. I can’t cover your face.” She pushed on his cheekbones, making him flinch. “Or your hands and feet.” She poked at his long fingers. “You’ll have to paint them. I’m sure I’ve got some around…”

She fished out a small pot of iridescent blue. He let out a single nervous chuckle, then let her smear the blue pain over his hands and face. She pushed the pot into his hand then ushered him outside.

“You can do the rest. Good luck, Héctor.”

“Thanks, Ceci.”

“And, Héctor?” He paused, blinked at her. “Maybe head out the window, eh? You can’t go down the street like that.”

He looked down and laughed as he poked at the shining coloured threads. Opened the window and slipped out. Crept through back alleys. As he got closer to the gate he sat down. Smeared the blue paint on his hands and feet. They still looked skeletal, but with a coat of glimmering blue they were distracting enough that hopefully no one would look too closely.

It was a crazy plan. It might have even worked too. Except as he climbed the outside of the gate, determined to bypass the checkpoint however possible, he slipped. Was caught by Eduardo who raised his eyebrow ridges in exasperated confusion. Only then did Héctor see the bright blue smudges of his hands and feet, staining the Aztec stones.

“This…was never going to work, was it?” he asked as Eduardo dropped him to his feet and gripped his shoulder. Steering him away from the gate.

“Probably not, Héctor,” Eduardo said. Unable to stop a small smile. Héctor grinned in return. Shrugged his shoulders. It had been worth a go.


	12. 1960

When the police knocked on the door of the Rivera hacienda that day, no one was quite sure what to expect. Imelda answered. Of course, she did. She was the matriarch, after all, and it was her responsibility: she spoke for the family.

“Señora, can we come in?”

She looked at them and tried not to see the boys they had been. Little Antonio and Daniel. Who had run around with Coco when she had been a little girl. Now here they were. Seasoned police men. Both dressed in their full uniforms with badges gleaming on their belt. Daniel, a few years younger than Antonio, was looking a little pale beneath his thick dark beard. An odd grey tinge to his brown skin.

“Can I help you, boys?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth she winced. Boys. How dismissive. “I’m sorry, officers. Please, come in.”

She opened the door. Gestured them inside. Tried to ignore the cold fist twisting around in her gut. They hesitated for only a moment of the threshold before complying. Elena and Victoria were peeking around the corner and scattered as soon as the men entered. Coco and Julio were in the workroom. The whirr of the sewing machine and clack of the hammer suddenly very loud.

She showed them to the living room. “Would you like something to eat or drink? Some water, perhaps, it’s a hot day out there.”

“No, thank you, señora Rivera.”

“Call me Imelda, please.” It was an automatic response. She didn’t know what else to say.

“Imelda…” Antonio glanced at Daniel, and the look of sorrow in their faces made her stomach twist. “Could you have a seat?”

She did. Perched on the edge of an overstuffed arm chair. Not leaning back on the worn cushions. Keeping her spine straight and strong. That terrible apprehension filling her abdomen, rising in the hollow places inside her like icy water.

“Imelda, I’m so sorry,” Daniel said. His voice was shaking. The hand he reached to her was trembling, ever so slightly. He saw the tremor in his own fingers and made a tight fist in his lap. Averted his eyes.

“Sorry, about what?” Her voice echoed in her ears. Dazed and confused and a million miles away.

“It’s Óscar and Felipe,” Antonio said. He lay a hand across hers. It was warm and solid. Not trembling. Not hesitating. “I’m sorry, Imelda. There was an accident.”

Her blood turned to ice. Freezing solid in her veins. He kept talking, murmuring softly what had happened, but she couldn’t hear him. All she could hear was the irregular thumping of her ineffectual heart in her own ears.

Her brothers. Her smiling, dopey, protective big brothers. Who’d always been there for her, through thick and thin. Who’d supported her and helped her raise Coco after Héctor had abandoned them.

“Mama? What’s happening?”

Coco popped her head into the living room. Imelda saw her from the corner of her eye. Dark braids and wide concerned eyes. She couldn’t quite make herself turn or gesture or say anything. She just kept staring at Antonio and Daniel.

Thankfully, Coco took charge. She came forward. Put her hands protectively on her mother’s shoulders.

“Sorry, señors, can you repeat that?”

They did. Antonio did, anyway. Coco’s grip on Imelda’s shoulders tightened. Her fingernails digging in. The pain woke Imelda out of her shock enough to hear the words ‘car’, ‘instant’ and ‘painless’. Words that were of little comfort to two women who had just lost the most important men in their lives.

The officers left. Daniel, overcoming his own shock a little, hugged Coco as he did. Reiterated again how sorry he was for their loss.

Santa Cecilia was a small community. And the Riveras were well known within it. It wouldn’t be long before everyone knew. The pitying looks would start again. The whispers behind raised hands. The sympathy and the relief. Another loss for the Riveras. Thank goodness it wasn’t them.

Coco returned. Wrapped arms around her and leaned a tear-stained face against her shoulder.

“Mama, I can’t believe it… Tío Óscar… Tío Felipe…”

The girls approached, then Julio and Rosita. Soon everyone was crying. Confused. Dazed. Lost.  They congregated around Imelda. Elena and Victoria, still so young, were bawling in large whooping sobs. Imelda didn’t cry. She didn’t have any tears, it seemed. All she felt was a deep aching loss.

So began a period of mourning in the Rivera house. Their photos were the first to grace the ofrenda that Imelda had been setting up. Since both of her parents had died before they’d been able to convince them to sit for a portrait.

Their photos were placed in a double frame. Hinged open so it stood unsupported. Óscar’s favourite pincushion placed beside Felipe’s favourite novel. A small basket of chilies and a single pineapple. Their favourite things in life.

And on Día de Muertos Imelda put her hands on her granddaughters’ shoulders and told them stories of the twins as Coco watched from the doorway. Tales from back when they were children and they’d delighted in spinning her in such repetitive circles that she’d be too dizzy to stand. About how they’d made their own secret language, seemingly just to spite her.

Then she explained how they would cross over to visit them every Día de Muertos as long as they kept telling these stories. How important it was to keep the ofrenda intact and the memories of their ancestors alive.

* * *

“Aren’t you going to try to cross the bridge, amigo?”

Héctor shrugged. Plucked out a few sad notes, then adjusted the chord so when he strummed again it was a major key.

“Already did, Cheech. Earlier today. I couldn’t get anyone to bring the fridge through the checkpoint.” He lowered his eyes, trying to fight against the sinking despair in his ribcage. Thought about how he’d had to squeeze his bones into the tight mini-fridge, and then how no one would lug it through the gate, not even as he’d begged and pleaded.  “But I didn’t end up in gaol this time so…bonus there I guess.”

Cheech laughed, swayed in his hammock and looked out over the water.

“You sure are eager to get across, eh?”

“Ay, Cheech, if you knew Imelda you’d understand.” A few more chords. Trying to distract himself from the memories. From the disappointment. It had been so long. So many years of trying and trying and failing at every turn. He wasn’t sure how much more his spirit could take before it started cracking.

The thought made him laugh as he nudged his hand against his broken rib. It wasn’t going to heal, that was clear from looking around Shantytown. At least it was still holding firm. His bones had taken a rattling earlier in the year. Uncertain exactly why, he’d just felt a bit…faded. Though his bones were still white compared to Cheech’s, they were greyer than they had been. He had not mentioned this to anyone. He had no interest in finding out why that would be, not yet.

“Ay, do you think I ever will?"

That startled him out of his thoughts. He blinked at Cheech, then down at the guitar, unable to stop an adoring smile spreading over his face.

“I hope so, Cheech. Imelda is… She’s a hell of a woman.”

Cheech grinned. Tossed a loose record in a relaxed spin so it knocked against Héctor’s skull.

“Beautiful, eh?”

“Oh, Tío, you have no idea!” Héctor, not even realising he was doing it, pressed a hand over his ribs, where his heart had been in life. “She’s the most beautiful woman in the world. Like she’s made of stars. She’s almost too beautiful to look at. And she has fire in her soul. Passion that burns so hot it would have left me a pile of ash if I wasn’t careful. And her voice.” His spine lost its strength at the memory. He slumped back against the wall and he looked wistfully over the water. “Her voice is…like an angel’s…”

“You think she’s still alive?”

The thought coiled around Héctor’s mind for a moment like a venomous snake, sending a chill through his bones.

He shook his head. Once. Hard. Trying to dislodge the thought.

“No, she’s alive. She has to be. If she’d died she would’ve…” The words stopped dead in his throat, frozen. He thought about that day, where his bones had shuddered and faded. Someone who remembered him must have died. That was the only thing that made sense.

But surely Imelda would have written his name down. He would have been alerted by one of the messenger alebrijes from the station. That his wife was in the Land of the Dead. Unless…

His hands thumped on the guitar with a heavy, musical thud as all the strength left his joints.

“She’s still angry,” he murmured, finishing the thought that his mind only barely let him comprehend. The idea that Imelda would refuse to see him, even in death, hurt too much.

“Ay, cousin, don’t be so down.” Cheech waved a hand in a vaguely dismissive gesture. “I’m sure she’s still alive. I was just yanking your chain.”

Héctor glowered at him for only a moment. Then relaxed. “Yeah, I’m sure you’re right. No way she’d stay that mad at me forever.”


	13. 1961-1971

Rosita, Julio’s sister, was a large woman. She had a round, kind face, and ample soft arms. She could be incredibly ditzy, would get distracted by the smallest thing for hours, loved to gossip and whisper behind her hand.

But she had a large heart and a huge capacity for love and kindness. After the death of Óscar and Felipe she quickly filled all the holes in routine they’d left. She read with Victoria at bedtime, dropping her usually high voice into growly low registers. She made toys with Elena, prompting ideas with a natural skill.

Imelda often said that Rosita would have been a wonderful mother. When she did Rosita would blush and flap her hands and shake her head.

“Not me, no, no, I get distracted too easily.”

But despite all she said she adored being a Tía. Loved playing with her nieces and watching them grow. Loved inspiring them to be strong and independent and determined. Watching Elena grow into a short, solid woman who resembled herself in a lot of ways. Watching Victoria grow tall and lanky, resembling no one else in the family it seemed. It made her heart full.

* * *

Óscar and Felipe had taken a bit of time to get used to their skeletal forms. It helped having each other. Identical skeletons with identical markers: it made the process a lot easier.

When they’d arrived, they’d been shuffled to the Crafts District: a place of tailors, tinkers, furniture makers, cobblers. They’d started work in another shoe-maker, unable to resist the call of leather and thread. It wasn’t like working for their family though. Gone was that easy comradery, the quick humour and conversation.

“At least we have each other,” Felipe would say at the end of another long day making shoes that were not nearly as high quality as the one’s they had made in life.

Together they had spent their life and together they would face their death.

And every year they crossed the bridge of marigold petals and visited their family.

* * *

Imelda often wandered the streets at night. It had been many long decades since she had slept soundly, and now after the loss of her brothers she found sleep eluded her until the very early hours.

As such she would walk. Through empty streets and past open fields. Sometimes she went to the cemetery, where the night guard always allowed her access. Sometimes she went to the train station and sat on slatted wooden benches beneath curved awnings. Always looking at the stars.

When she went to the cemetery she would often perch on Óscar and Felipe’s gravestone. Sing them songs in a low, haunting voice. She sang their favourites, and wished they’d been alive to hear them.

One night as she sat there, singing quietly, she felt a nudge to her hand. A warm, soft nudge. Looking down, she saw a cat rubbing its cheeks against her fingers. Purring in a low, gentle rumble she could feel more than hear.

She blinked and stared at this ratty little specimen. A kitten with short, matted fur, brown and white splotches. A street cat. A stray.

“Never name a stray,” she murmured.

Her papa’s words from when she had been a little girl. She’d had a street cat then. A little splotchy brown and white cat with a crooked tail and a hairless flank. She had loved that little cat, fed her and named her. And of course, had cried bitterly when her papa had chased it away. Admonished her for encouraging it. They’d have strays all through the house, he’d said. When they learn there’s food it’s all over.

But of course, papa was long dead now, and Imelda was an adult who could make her own decisions. With a swift movement she scooped the kitten onto her lap. It briefly sank claws through her skirt, leaving tiny pinpricks of blood, then curled up and purred louder.

She scratched beneath its chin, stroked velvet ears, and smiled as it lapped a rough tongue against her fingertips.

“Pepita,” she whispered. The name of her cat when she was little. The kitten purred and flicked its tail. Yes, Pepita suited it perfectly.

* * *

Héctor never saw Óscar and Felipe. In his many attempts to cross the bridge, somehow he never came across his brothers-in-law. He kept an eye out whenever he approached though. Looking for Imelda. Not admitting that’s who he was looking for.

One year, as he’d climbed to the top of one of the tall, stacked buildings near the station, a crudely sewn parachute tucked beneath his arms, he thought he’d seen her.

Cloth was hard to come by in Shantytown. Even his new ratty jacket and faded trousers had been scavenged from the empty bungalow after a Final Death. And so, when he’d decided he was going to try parachuting over the checkpoint he’d had to get…creative. And persuasive. Cheech hadn’t parted with his good cloth napkins easily.

When he’d seen a striking woman with dark hair twisted in a bun wearing a tight blue dress, a shock had passed through his bones. Loosened his joints. He lost his grip. Slipped. Fell.

Desperate, he’d thrown the parachute above him, wrapping the corners around his hands with a tight, fearful grip. It billowed. Snapped. Filled with air. A soaring sense of triumph.

It slowed his fall. A little. As he swung towards the station he heard a quiet purr of parting cloth. His ridiculous parachute, stitched from Cheech’s treasured linen napkins, was coming apart at the seams.

“Imelda!”

As he plummeted towards the bridge, as he plunged into petals that broke apart beneath his weight and entangled him in a web, he reached towards the woman. With her braided bun and blue dress. The shade of blue she’d worn on the night he’d first seen her. Dancing in a silent room. To the beat of her own heart. Her eyes closed and her lips curled in a small smile. Too beautiful to approach. Too passionate to speak to.

But it wasn’t her. Of course it wasn’t her. Unfamiliar angular cheekbones set beneath eyes that were too dark. Almost black. She was beautiful. But she wasn’t Imelda.

She wasn’t his wife.

* * *

Elena met Franco when he came limping into the workshop. His boot had come completely apart in the field, soaking his sock with mud and leaving his foot vulnerable to a vicious shard of wood.

She’d ushered him in, sat him on a stool and lifted his foot in her hands. Pulled the stick free and put pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding. As she did she went on a rant about how useless his current boots were. How subpar the stitching was, how weak the materials were. He watched with growing admiration, and when she finally realised she flushed and stumbled to a halt.

Victoria, having seen all of this from the doorway, sauntered in, nudged Elena and smiled a wicked little sister smile. A smile that said ‘if you think I’m not mentioning this later, you are loco’.

“Is this your _boyfriend_?” she asked in a teasing singsong voice.

Elena flushed harder. Threw a hard elbow in Victoria’s direction, overbalanced, slipped off her chair and landed on the floor with a very unladylike curse. Victoria skipped away, giggling, leaving Elena to realise what she’d said and cover her mouth.

Of course, she didn’t need to be embarrassed. The passion in her voice when she’d ranted about his shoes, and the fire in her soul that had flared when Victoria teased, had won him over completely. Over the coming years he entrenched himself in her heart. And they were inseparable.

* * *

People were starting to get sick of Héctor’s schemes. In Shantytown and in the station. In the back of his own mind he was pretty sick of them too. It was not what he wanted to be doing. He wanted to be one of those happy, healthy skeletons that passed through the checkpoint and crossed the bridge with no issues.

Grief was a funny thing, he’d realised. He had grieved for the loss of Ernesto. His closest friend. His brother in all but name. The loss of that friendship and the years they had spent working together. He refused to let himself grieve for Imelda. For Coco. For his family. To do so would be giving up, he reasoned.

And so, he persisted. Every year. At least once, and sometimes twice, to try and throw them, or catch them off guard. It never worked, of course. But at least the guards went easy on him. He hardly ever ended up in gaol overnight anymore. After almost five decades of trying to get across he was more of a nuisance to them than an actual threat.

Still, he wished he could see how things were going on the other side of the bridge. How his family was growing. If they were doing okay, even without him.

* * *

Imelda was so proud of her family. She would sit with Pepita curled on her lap, watching over the workroom. Her daughter, son-in-law (and his sister), granddaughters and now her grandson-in-law. It made her heart glow warm to see them all working together. Building and sewing and hammering. Cracking jokes and filling the workroom with such love and caring.

And of course, she never stopped making shoes. She designed new types and encouraged her family to do the same. She was determined that she would make shoes until the day she died.

Pepita, initially flighty, had also grown to love the workroom. She would saunter around, pushing over stacks of leather and lounging on top of the sewing machines. Flick her tail in the face of Julio particularly when he was trying to properly form wingtips.

It was wonderful, being here with her family. Surrounded by love and support and kindness. It was all she’d ever dreamed her old age would be. Well, almost.

* * *

“Hold still, amigo.”

Héctor flinched, hissed breath through gritted teeth and clenched his eyes shut.

Pulling apart his joints didn’t hurt. It felt weird, yes, but had never been painful. Cracking his rib hadn’t really been painful either, not with the general shock of impact and the brief spell of unconsciousness he hadn’t felt anything.

This, though. This was painful.

His left hand curled in a tight fist and beat a steady rhythm on his femur. Trying to distract himself. Across the room, Cheech squinted and tried to oppose the jagged edges of Héctor’s right ulnar by the light filtering down from above the bridge. The points scraped, sending an awful shuddering pain through Héctor’s bones. Even here, pressed into a corner, so far from the injured bone itself, the pain was staggering. 

The forearm in Chicharrón’s grip twitched. Writhed. Edges jittered apart then crashed together.

“What did you do to yourself, Héctor?”

“Fell.” Short and clipped. A wave of giddiness washed over him and he swayed. Leaned heavily against the wall. Turned his face into the corner. Reminded himself to breathe. It didn’t seem to serve any functional purpose, but there was an odd sense of comfort in the shifting of his ribs. Of the taste of the dusty air.

Cheech readjusted his grip. Held firm. The broken bone scraped together again, inspiring another muffled curse and twist of nausea.

“It’s okay, amigo. It’ll hurt less when it’s secure.” He put one hand over the break. Héctor groaned and banged his head against the uneven wood. There was the uneven purring of old duct tape and then the pain lessened. The shifting stopped. The tape was cold on his ulna.  “Better?”

Héctor turned and pulled his arm back to him. Carefully examined the crude silver splint holding the shattered bone together. He flexed his forearm. Uncertain. Breathed a low sigh of relief when it didn’t hurt.

“Ay, thanks, Cheech.”

“No problem.” Cheech swung himself into his hammock. Settled in. “So, want to tell me how you fell?”

“Not particularly.” Héctor latched his forearm back onto his humerus and twisted his wrist back and forth. Flushed and covered his cheeks to hide the glow. “Just landed badly, that’s all.”

Cheech raised unconvinced eyebrow ridges at him. Turned his head out to look over the water. “Reckon it’ll interfere with your playing?”

That was an awful thought. Héctor reached out and grabbed the guitar that Cheech had loaned him, balancing it on his lap. Played a few simple notes. All fine. Good.

Cheech grabbed his own guitar and started playing with less refined talent, but a raw passion. They grinned at each other, and played Chicharrón’s favourite together. Both singing and laughing. And what a relief that was.


	14. 1972

It was quick, at least. Not painless, because not everyone was as lucky as her brothers had been, but quick all the same.

Her heart had abandoned the strong steady beat that she’d followed all her life. It had started to skip and flutter, irregular thumping in her ears. Initially she’d been concerned, though not enough to mention it. Elena had just fallen pregnant, after all, and she didn’t want to worry the family. They had enough to worry about.

The headache hit her out of nowhere one day. It was immense, pulsing in her temples, throbbing in her jaw. Suddenly clumsy, her hands fumbled the leather and her foot slammed on the pedal of her sewing machine. It screamed to life, needle and thread whirring, chewing up the boot that was only half-made. She was vaguely aware of her heart beating in her chest. Frantic and rapid, like the wings of a trapped bird against her ribcage.

“Mama? Mama?!”

Coco’s hands on her shoulders. Pulling her away from the shrieking sewing machine. There was an odd combination of spasm and boneless weakness in her limbs. She fell from her chair, caught against her daughter’s chest, both of them overbalancing and crashing to the ground.

The headache was all-consuming. She became aware that she couldn’t breathe properly. That her heart had begun to pause in its frantic fluttering. That she could no longer really feel her hands.

These facts seemed unimportant.

What was important was that Coco was crying. Distressed whooping sobs. Like she’d cried when she had been a little girl. Not the tears of a woman in her mid-fifties. Imelda tried to lift her hands. The left twitched in her lap. Did nothing more. The right rose, wavering, and bumped against Coco’s cheek.

“Don’t…cry…” Her voice was a croaky little whisper, rasping from her throat. She found she was unable to put any force behind her words. “Coco, please…m’ija…”

And then the pulsing headache was gone. The irregular skipping of her heart was gone. She was gone. For a while there was nothing.

* * *

Héctor shuddered, suddenly ice cold. Slipped. Fell from the roof he was trying to help fix and into the water. It wrapped him in a cold wet embrace, seeming to urge him deeper, until his left knee collided hard with the rocky river bed.

There was a sharp, almost electric surge of pain. He gasped in water. Didn’t feel any worse for it. Because, of course, he didn’t really need to breathe.

He bent, long fingers searching the murky water, running down his femur and through the joint of his knee. It was cracked. Of course it was. A twisting spiral break in his tibia. The cold water rushing past the jagged edges sent needles of pain up his spine to lodge in his jaw. His fibula was floating off to the side, still connected to his ankle but cut loose from his knee. There was a sharp stone that had pierced the leg of his trousers and wedged itself in his knee joint. He fought to get it free and eventually, frustrated, he tore the flimsy cloth of his pants above the knee and pulled his lower leg off, separating the knee joint. He held the shattered top of his tibia in one hand and the rest of his lower leg in the other. Kicked off with his right foot. Broke the surface with a spluttering cough.

“You okay, amigo?”

Tío Alberto, the skeleton whose roof they were fixing, extended his hand and helped Héctor out of the water, grimacing when he saw the broken bone.

“I’ll be okay.” The pain was immense. Like when he’d broken his arm. A biting clawing pain. Héctor carefully opposed the edges of his tibia, wrapped a hand tight around it and winced as the bones jarred. “Do you have any tape?”

“You’ll need to dry off first, amigo,” Alberto said. Smiled at him reassuringly. “The tape won’t stick to wet bone.”

Héctor groaned to himself.  Looked in vain for a towel or other dry cloth. Not willing to admit that it wasn’t just the pain of his broken leg that made him so anxious to be fixed.

It was something else, of course. His distress was, first and foremost, that icy shudder that had twisted through his bones. Like just over ten years ago, but much more powerful. Someone who remembered him must have died. Someone who remembered him _strongly_. And he could think of only two people like that.

* * *

When she woke up, she was disorientated. And relieved that her headache was gone. She lifted one hand to her temple and shot to her feet when her fingertips scraped on bone. Looked down at her baggy dress hanging open in front of curved ribs.

A skeleton in a blue uniform, a black belt cinched tightly around her spine, approached and handed her a clipboard, welcoming her to the Land of the Dead with a bony smile.

Imelda took it with no hesitation, adjusting her dress with one hand so her ribcage was hidden from sight. With a matter-of-fact detachment, she filled out the form.

“Señora? What if I don’t know my cause of death?” she asked. It was a bit disconcerting how matter of fact her tone was. How accepting she was of this afterlife. But there was no use getting flustered over something she couldn’t change.

“Ah, don’t worry,” the clerk said with a comforting smile. “If you’re not sure just put what you felt and we can adjust it later.”

“Thank you.” She wrote down headache, paused, then added a dash and ‘irregular heartbeat’. That would narrow it down a little. When she’d filled it all out, she handed it back.

“Oh, a shoemaker! Fantastic. The Crafts District is always in need of a good cobbler.” The words sent a warm flush of pleasure through Imelda’s ribs. It was always reassuring to hear that her profession was valuable. Another flipped page. “And your brothers are already here, that’s wonderful. We’ll send an alebrije to alert them of your death.”

She felt a little twinge of something at that. Of course, if she was here as a skeleton, then Óscar and Felipe must be as well. The thought of seeing them as skeletons sparked the first little flash of trepidation in this strange new world. Before she could focus on it, she was ushered into the Department of Family Reunions, watching with wide, awe-filled eyes as striped and spotted and glowing rainbow animals crawled over the pillars and columns. There was an open window high above and the magical creatures flew in and out in a surprisingly orderly fashion.

Pretty much as soon as she entered the door flew open and two identical skeletons raced in. They saw her at the same time she saw them. A moment’s pause and then they were running towards her.

They swept her into their arms, hugging her tightly. Their tears wet her hair and she closed her eyes as she held them close.

“Oh, Imelda…”

“We’ve missed you, hermana.”

“It’s so good to hug you again.”

“Are you okay?”

“You’re not in pain?”

“You’re coping?”

She laughed. A choked little laugh that emerged from her tears like sunshine on a rainy day. “I’ve missed you too, hermanos.” She hugged them closer. Pressed her face to first Óscar, then Felipe’s shoulders.

“Now you’re here we can start up Rivera Shoes,” Felipe said.

“We’ve been working for other people but it’s no fun,” Óscar added.

“But with the three of us –“

“We’ll be able to start up a workshop proper!”

She laughed again, wiped her eyes, and felt a soaring sense of joy when she looked between their grins. “That sounds wonderful. Lead the way.”

And so, they did. Their arms linked with hers, they left the station as a trio. As they stepped outside a gigantic shadow swooped from the sky, bowling all of them over with an earnest yowl. Imelda was afraid for only a split second, before the enormous jaguar with eagle wings and shining rainbow feathers butted its head against her shoulder and delicately lapped at her face. The purr that rumbled through her bones was immense, and recognition burst through her.

“Pepita!” She embraced the cat. Her cat. Oh, how wonderful it was to have her here as well, to help guide her through the afterlife. “You’ve been guiding me here, haven’t you? What a good kitty.”

And Óscar and Felipe watched with wide eyes and an open mouth as their little sister tickled beneath the jaguar’s chin and crooned softly to her.

* * *

It took time for Héctor’s bones to dry. Too much time. There was an unpleasant, squirmy sense of anxiety that worked its way up from his toes to the very top of his skull. Why had his knee broken so easily? It was one of the strongest bones in his body. Would he be able to walk on it?

When Alberto finally decided he was dry enough and taped him up, he got up slowly. Cautiously. Testing the joint. It didn’t hurt, thankfully, but it wasn’t totally stable either. The fibula kept popping out of his knee joint when he put weight on it and springing back when he lifted his foot. It was a very disconcerting feeling. It made the act of walking, particularly with that leg of his trousers now above the knee, tricky.

“I have to go,” he said. “Sorry about your roof, Tío, I’ll be back to help later.”

“You’ve done enough for today, cousin.” Alberto slapped a hand on Héctor’s shoulder. “And I appreciate it. You go rest that leg now. Do you need a hand back home?”

Home. His little shack with bare walls and a bare floor, and a narrow mat beside the water. Empty except for the various instruments he had gathered.

“No thanks, Tío. I’ll manage.” He smiled a strained little smile. Limped away from them and out of Shantytown. Trying to hurry and being absolutely unable to. He reached down with one hand and tried to stabilise his knee. It worked a little, but leaned him sideways so he kept veering off to the side. It took conscious effort to keep moving in a straight line.

It took three times as long as normal to get to the station. When he arrived, the lobby was empty. Alebrijes congregated near the roof, the shining of their pelts forming a kaleidoscope of rainbow colours that shifted and merged as they breathed.

He limped to the front desk and leaned against it. Rafael, one of the clerks who sometimes manned the checkpoint on Día de Muertos, was sitting behind the glass and flicking through a pile of clipboards. Using a hole punch to input data on stiff pieces of card and filing them in apparently random order. When he glanced up and saw Héctor there, he almost jumped out of his chair, bones rattling with shock.

“Oh, Héctor.” He ran a hand over his face and sighed. “What are you doing here? Día de Muertos isn’t for another month.”

“Did someone new arrive? From Santa Cecilia?”

Rafael winced. Looked down at the stack of clipboards and flipped them over, so they were face down. “You know I can’t tell you that, Héctor. Privacy and all that.”

“Please, Rafael, I think my…” He trailed off, uncertain how to actually finish the sentence. Catching the pity in Rafael’s eyes, Héctor swallowed and leaned forward. Had to try and get the information. Even if it meant manipulating this poor young man. “I think my wife might have…” He let out a dramatic choking sob. Covering his face with his hands. There were no tears stinging his eyes: he was too focused on getting the information he needed.

Rafael hesitated for only a moment, looking down at the stack of clipboards, then his lips tightened and despair coiled around Héctor’s spine.

“I’m sorry. Even if she did, she didn’t put your name down and your face wasn’t on the ofrenda sweep. You need to leave.” His eyes flicked up, sad and uncertain, but couldn’t meet Héctor’s gaze for long. “Please, Héctor.”

Silence. Héctor assessed Rafael’s face, eyes narrowed, then dropped his chin to his sternum. He wasn’t going to get any information out of Rafael. He had no way of knowing if Imelda or Coco had died. He pulled back from the desk. Turned and limped from the station without another word. Tomorrow he would search the Arts District, ask around, see if he could find any news of a singer or dancer just arrived from the Land of the Living. Maybe, with luck, he’d find one of his girls.


	15. 1973

Elena gave birth to a healthy baby boy in the summer of 1973. Berto was incredibly chubby, all rolls and round cheeks. Coco, now the matriarch of the family, stopped working in the workroom most of the time so she could babysit. After Mama Imelda’s stroke the year before Coco had become oddly anxious when she visited the workroom. She was more than happy to leave the shoe making to her husband, daughters and son-in-law.

Not that she never helped out, of course. She would go in and give advice on occasion, bouncing Berto on her hip as she pointed out where Victoria’s stitching had gotten muddled and why Elena’s eyelets were uneven. But whenever she tried to sit down at the sewing machine she became overwhelmed with grief. Seeing her mother’s wrinkled, distressed face, the drooping corner of her mouth.

It was all too much for her.

So, she left it to her family, knowing that they would support her until she was ready to come back. Besides, it was wonderful looking after a baby again. Berto was a sweet little baby who smiled easily and laughed from deep in his chubby belly.

One afternoon, when she was soothing him for his nap, she considered singing to him. She even, with some difficulty she was distressed to realise, hummed a little bit of her old lullaby. Her voice was cracked and, though she hit the notes, it was difficult to keep in tune.

He was mesmerised by her voice, his eyes growing wide as his mouth dropping open just the slightest bit. She smiled at him and lay him in the cot, stroking black hair that was already thick and shiny.

“Sorry, m’ijo,” she murmured soothingly, watching as his eyelids drooped and he started to doze. “It’s been too long. Singing is…not in me anymore.” 

Her heart broke at this, and she felt tears prickle at the corners of her eyes. She dashed them away, drawing a sharp breath through her nose, and looked out of the window. She mumbled a soft apology to her mother, the woman who had spent over fifty years trying to eradicate music from her life, and then to her father, who existed as a shadow in the back of her mind, a warm smooth voice in her dreams.

She left Berto sleeping in his crib and went to her room. Fished out the shoebox and the notebook. She sat on the bed as she went through them again. Some of the letters for her mama she’d realised, as she’d grown, were intensely personal, and they remained folded at the back. As a young woman, she’d been disgusted by the idea, but shortly after meeting Julio and feeling just how deep love and lust could be, she had viewed them as proof that her parents did love each other at one point. That she hadn’t imagined Imelda’s smile and beautiful alto singing accompanying his voice and guitar.

She read through his letters to her again. Letters for a child. Large printed words with simple drawings. There was so much more to them than she’d realised as a toddler. Of course there was. The songs he’d written for her and for his wife (at least, the less salacious ones) were all here. She couldn’t remember the tune for most of them. The notes floated in the back of her mind, just out of reach, and she lacked the practice to string them together into a coherent melody.

Socorro Rivera, fifty-five years old and matriarch of her family, packed up the letters and put them on the bed. Remembering the music that had once flowed so strongly through her, she slowly started to dance in the bedroom. Slow revolutions in soft-soled shoes. A scrap of photograph held gently in her hands.

* * *

Imelda Rivera had adapted very well to being dead. She and her brothers were still working at the other cobbler, but they were seeking out their own space and were going to found a new Rivera Shoes in the Land of the Dead. She was already sourcing materials as they checked out various workshops. There needed to be an attached hacienda, with space to expand. Everyone dies eventually, after all, and they needed to be able to accommodate the rest of the family as it grew.

One thing she couldn’t get used to here in the Land of the Dead was the abundance of music. It ran beneath everything. There was constantly someone singing or someone playing guitar on street corners. In the market there was a different busker on every corner, playing to small crowds. Some of them tried to draw her closer, shouting out compliments and singing serenades as she walked past. It made her sick every time.

In the Land of the Living there was music, certainly, but it had been so easy to cut it out, to avoid it wherever possible, and she had become somewhat of an expert at that. Now, however, her expertise was wasted. All she could do was point her face away and keep her head high and stalk away from them. Rarely, she would call Pepita to her side, if the musico was being a little too forward.

One day when she was in the market she was trying desperately to tune out the music around her. It was everywhere today, it seemed, an insistent little pulling melody that tugged at her soul. She fought against it with her not inconsiderable will, gritting her teeth and adjusting the leather apron she kept tied around her waist. It was too tight, it seemed. It was restricting her movement. She loosened the straps of it and took a deep breath. Reassessing the situation. The vender was blinking at her with surprised eyes and she turned her displeasure on him.

“This price is outrageous.” She rubbed the leather he’d presented to her between thumb and forefinger, and scowled. “This leather is worth half the price you’re asking.”

“Señora, this is finest quality, I assure you.”

“Perhaps it was, but it has been left in the sun too long and has been weakened for it. I won’t pay top price for leather that will wear through in only a year.”

He flushed, red and orange marks glowing, and lowered his eyes. She huffed and turned on her heel. The music was making her dizzy, made her head spin as she did. She kept her spine straight and strode from the market. Had to get out. Had to get some fresh air.

As she stalked past the gates to the market, the music that had been playing faltered to a stop. She tried not to pay attention, but then a voice called out her name and everything inside her froze in an icy rush of recognition.

* * *

Héctor enjoyed playing at the Crafts Market. The children there, bored of the flat colours of wood and leather and wax, would flock to him. He could play the upbeat, fun songs with them. Songs that would make them dance and clap along. It was the most rewarding part of his whole musical career.

One day, as he played a nonsense nursery rhyme about sea snakes, he saw her. Striding with purpose, her head held high. Curved cheekbones and delicate gold and purple markings on her face. Her long dark hair twisted in a braided bun accented with a purple ribbon. She was wearing purple and had a brown apron—leather? Why would she have a leather apron?— tied loosely around her spine. It was like being hit by a lightning bolt. Every part of him came alive on seeing her, becoming whole again.

He stopped playing. Put his guitar down. Moved past the children as though he was moving through honey. His voice cracked as he yelled her name. “Imelda!”

She froze. Managed to half turn towards him before his legs finally obeyed him and he lunged towards her. Wrapped his arms tight around her and held her close to him.

Her ribcage fit neatly against his. The bony prominence of her hip through the skirt bumped against his and an electric jolt passed through him. That sense of wholeness increased, swelled, and the relief of that feeling filled him so completely that when he spoke his voice was a crooning murmur from some distant universe. “Oh, mi amor, I have _missed_ you.”

He wanted to kiss her, he wanted to hold her, he wanted to sweep her up in his arms and never let her go. Instead the relief of having her so close to him again after all these years and decades made his joints weak and he leaned against her. Pressed his face to her hair and breathed in the smell of soap. There was silver there, he noticed, snaking through her previously dark hair, and he felt a spark of joy seeing it. She had lived, then. Properly lived. She would have had wrinkles on her face and a stoop in her spine and at that moment all he wished was that he’d been able to see her in her old age.

“Let go of me,” she whispered, her voice deeper and gravellier than when he’d left. It was cold, that whisper, and furious, and his spirit cracked at the sound of it. He lifted his face from her hair with a low aching regret and looked down at her, confused.

“Imelda?”

She swung her hand. Caught him hard on the cheek. His head spun and he stumbled back. One hand reached up and stabilised the spin, and he blinked at her, confused, not understanding.

“Don’t you touch me,” she said. Her dark eyes were blazing with fury, sparkling with tears. “How _dare_ you?”

He didn’t look away, didn’t avoid her eyes. He just dipped his chin and winced at the rage in her voice and, for the first time, felt grief for his wife fill him. “Imelda…I’m sorry…”

But she was already leaving. She turned her back and rushed away, striding with long, purposeful steps towards the Crafts District. She was still angry at him. Of course she was. It had been over fifty years since they’d last been together. It would take time for her to forgive him for dying all that time ago.

Steeling his spirit and trying to ignore the guilt that filled him, he watched carefully to see which direction she went. He was hurt that she was so angry, of course he was. He was angry at himself that he’d been away so long. But she would forgive him. One day.


	16. 1974-1976

Victoria was twenty-one years old when she fell in love. She had never fallen in love before. She’s never even felt that flash of attraction she’d seen in Elena’s eyes when Franco had first entered the workroom. It had been hilarious. The funniest thing she’d ever seen, if for no other reason than it had been a completely alien expression in her own mind.

Three days after her twenty-first birthday she was in the market, holding Berto’s hand as he toddled beside her. In her other hand, she held a list from Coco, bullet points with materials and ingredients that the workshop needed. When she was distracted looking for Julio’s favourite type of tea, Berto pulled free and ran with dexterity he had not shown before into the street.

“Berto!” she shouted, a cold wash of fear filling her from the toes up. And then he was being scooped up and carried out of the road by a woman with dark skin and strong arms and a smile that was almost blinding in its beauty.

“Is he yours?” the woman asked as Berto laughed and cooed and pulled on her dark hair.

“My sister’s,” Victoria said, her voice soft and dazed. “T-thank you for grabbing him, he slipped away from me.”

She smiled again and Victoria’s heart fluttered in a very peculiar fashion. As though it was trying to beat free of her ribs. “María,” the angel said, and held out one hand. The other expertly balanced Berto on her hip and bounced him to keep him entertained.

“Victoria.” An electric shock as their hands touched. Victoria’s fingers spasmed and clamped around María’s, and she forced it to let go with a mumbled apology. “This is Berto. Thank you again, for catching him.”

Was that a flush in her cheeks? A hint of rose beneath sun-darkened skin. A flock of butterflies started to fill Victoria’s stomach and she was vaguely aware of the blood rising in her own face and heating the points of her ears.

“It was no problem.” María was definitely blushing now. Berto blinked between the two of them with wide confused eyes. “Here.” She handed him back. Victoria took him, propped him on her hip, and smiled a little uncertainly. “I should…” María cleared her throat. “I’ve got to get back to the farm. It was lovely to meet you.”

“You too.” An uncertain little smile. Victoria watched as María crossed back over the street, punched a broad man in the shoulder and cast a look back. Their eyes met, a brief jolt of electricity, then she was gone. Victoria turned back to her task, half-heartedly admonishing Berto for running off like that, and her mind whirling with confused thought and feeling.

* * *

Héctor couldn’t find Imelda at first. The Crafts District was too huge and too foreign for him to even know where to start. None of the tailors or dressmakers knew anything about an Imelda Rivera. It wasn’t until he happened to wander into the shoemaker’s section and saw a shoe-shaped piece of leather with the name Rivera stamped in gold, the words ‘Finest Shoes in the Land of the Living and the Dead’ inscribed in rounded letters. The year beneath, he noticed, was the year of his death.

Shoes? Somehow, he couldn’t imagine his Imelda making shoes. Dresses and suits, yes. Her fingers making the delicate movements to sew cloth together to form beautiful flowing garments. He couldn’t imagine the same with shoes. The hard leather and course soles making her hands rough and calloused. A lifetime of hard work. Again, he wished that he could have seen it. That he could have been there. That he could have run his fingertips, the skin thickened from years of playing the guitar, over her palms. He thought about kissing her hands and the sensation of rough skin beneath his lips, and an intense burst of longing twisted through his bones. Lust and libido were left behind in the Land of the Living; as skeletons, there was no need for sex or the needs of the flesh. But intimacy was different, and something he craved at the very core of his soul.

He didn’t get in that first day. The door was locked, a closed sign hanging crookedly from a nail, and the windows were dark. The second floor had some lights on, but the shutters were firmly closed and he had no interest in scaling the walls to look closer.  Instead he noted the location, marked the place in his memory, and went home to beneath the bridge.

The second day when he went there the shop was open, but he couldn’t bring himself to go inside. He lingered at the door and peeked inside. Imelda sat at the bench, between her brothers, the three of them murmuring in hushed voices and passing material back and forth between their hands.

Óscar (or was it Felipe?) mumbled something and Imelda erupted in laughter. Héctor felt his soul tremble at the sound, that same desperate longing rising to fill his chest. She was so beautiful, so proud and strong. Everything she’d been in life and more. Even the delicate swirls and loops of her skull marks were perfect, royal purples and golds.

Héctor couldn’t stay there. His spirit couldn’t take it. With a shuddering breath, he backed away from the workroom and the diosa inside. He waited until nightfall, still looking up at the moon and whispering their daughter’s lullaby at the right time, before leaning on the wall opposite Rivera Shoes. Lights flickered in the upper windows, and the shutters remained open. Imelda appeared, skeletal fingers deftly releasing her hair and unwinding the ribbon from her braid. He ached for her, again, so much more acutely than he had when she’d been alive.

She opened the window and leaned out to grab hold of the shutters. Dark eyes scouting the street almost absentmindedly before their gaze met and she froze. Shoulders lifting. Eyes widening.

“Héctor,” she said, or mouthed, or hissed. He couldn’t tell. From this distance, he could only see the shape of his name on her lips and tried desperately to ignore the anger that lit a flame in her eyes.

He swung the guitar around. His fingers automatically formed chords and strummed gentle delicate notes. It was a melody that had been burned into his mind, inscribed in gentle looping notes on the inside of his eyelids. The harmony she’d hummed and he’d developed on the night he’d found her again.

Recognition flitted across her face, flashing in her eyes and dropping her shoulders. He smiled up at her, hopeful and apologetic, singing sounds that were almost, but not quite, words. Only to stumble to a halt as she steeled her spine and slammed the shutters closed. The hollow bang was followed by a thud and rattle of glass as the window followed suit.

He leaned against the wall, blinking away the sting of tears. “I…I don’t know what I’ll do without you,” he whispered, and turned to go home.

* * *

Coco surveyed the ofrenda, picking off a few dead marigolds and straightening the photo frames. She traced the torn edge of the photo and down the right side of the frame, pausing where her father’s arm ended. His guitar was folded under, she knew, though she couldn’t remember what it looked like. She thought about opening the frame and unfolding the photograph, but couldn’t quite find the strength to do so. Mama Imelda had folded that photograph when Coco was in her teen years, when she was still so angry at her absent father that she hadn’t protested.

She regretted it now. Not speaking up when she’d had the chance. It was too late now. Elena, her whole life filled with stories of the grandfather who hadn’t stuck around long enough to be a father, was carrying on Imelda’s anger. And she wouldn’t hear any different. Refused to hear music or any word of the kindness and caring in the eyes of his photograph.

It was a shame. She felt as though she was turning her back on him now.

“Mama? Are you okay?”

Coco turned and pushed a smile that was too strained at the corners onto her face. Elena entered the room, one hand holding Berto’s and the other resting on the swell of her stomach.

“Just cleaning the ofrenda, m’ija.” She lifted the dead marigolds as though to prove her honesty. “And…well…thinking about Papa.”

Elena blinked with surprise, then narrowed her eyes. “He abandoned you, Mama. He didn’t love you. I don’t want to remember him; he deserves to be forgotten.”

Coco considered arguing the point, but pressed her lips closed. She didn’t want to upset her girl. And she definitely didn’t want to undermine the memory of Imelda. Because although she had not agreed with the bitterness and the persistent anger at a man who was not around anymore, she still loved her mother. Recognised the flawed humanity that had made her what she was, and forgiven her for it. Elena was a young mother, with a baby the same age Coco had been when her Papa had left. The idea of Franco just up and leaving was probably all she could think about when she thought of her absent grandfather, and Coco could understand the anger that flared. Rivera women had spines of steel, and were fiercely protective.

Coco could understand that.

* * *

Imelda was proud of what Rivera Shoes was. They were quickly becoming known as making the finest shoes in the Land of the Dead. Skeletons would line up around the block for a pair, and with only three of them working there the wait times were longer than was acceptable. No matter how high quality the shoes, people were not good at waiting. So, she started a pre-order service. Come in for a measurement, expect your shoes in a fortnight or so. Implementing this didn’t stop the occasional last-minute rush when people forgot that they needed shoes for some event that weekend, but at least it split it up to make it more manageable. They’d be able to expand the reach of the shoe as more family died, but hopefully that day wouldn’t come for some time now.

Día de Muertos was her favourite time of year. She loved going across the bridge and visiting with her family. Seeing Coco growing into a kind, understanding and protective matriarch made Imelda glow with pride. She also watched with interest as Victoria, the granddaughter who looked so much like Héctor, began to spend some of the holiday with a local farmer, though she didn’t quite understand the relationship between the two women. Imelda was far more taken with the realisation that babies could, usually, see the spirits of the dead, watching with wide, fascinated eyes as they moved by, and she delighted in making faces at her great grand-children. Berto would make faces back, much to Elena’s confusion, and Gloria would giggle with delight.

Óscar and Felipe would scope out the workroom, making notes on the new styles and techniques the family was using. No reason to leave such inventive ideas in the Land of the Living, after all, even if the machinery itself wouldn’t be available until it broke down or was replaced.

The only really annoying thing about her afterlife was Héctor. Since that first day in the marketplace, he would try to talk to her, try to serenade her. Grapefruits hadn’t worked; he was far more insistent than her suitors in the Land of the Living. He’d stopped playing that first song, at least. The one that had wooed her down from her window. Clearly, slamming the shutters closed whenever she heard the notes was enough to get across the point.

He kept trying though. Sometimes throwing pebbles to rattle against the wood or tap gently on the glass. Sometimes strumming his guitar for hours and hours, until she thought she would surely go mad. And every time she chucked fruit or slammed windows or yelled at him to leave her alone, she had to tamp down that little voice that swam up from the bottom of her heart. The one that asked her to let him in, to listen to him, to embrace him. The voice of love, still there after all those long years and that awful betrayal. She didn’t understand how it could still be so convincing.

Though of course, she was well practiced at ignoring it by now.


	17. 1977-1985

Elena had a lot of doubts about her ability to be a good mother. She loved her children with an intense protective power that frightened her a bit, but had always had doubts about her own ability to be a nurturing heart. When in doubt, which was more often than she cared to admit, she would imagine what Mama Coco or Abuelita Imelda would do in each situation. Though shutting down musical expression came naturally to her at this point, a lot of her decisions came down to what would encourage her children the most.

Berto was a boy who lacked imagination. He had a powerful laugh that rumbled from his belly at the slightest prompt, and appreciated Gloria’s quick wit and ridiculous, abstract humour. So far as creative energy went, he was happiest when he had a set series of steps to follow. Compared to the imaginative childhood she and Victoria had had, he was a pragmatic child with simple wants.

Gloria, however, was a bright, clever child. She played with language the way Victoria had as a young girl, building puns and ridiculous comparisons that were so outlandish it seemed no one else would ever consider them. Often her laughter would announce her presence, a high and mischievous giggle that caught the ear and focused attention.

Both of them loved shoes. Both were drawn to music. Berto would regurgitate whatever song he’d heard that day, in the wider world outside of the Rivera hacienda, while Gloria would sometimes make up her own songs. And Elena didn’t know how to cope with this influx of music, especially when she fell pregnant with her third child, and struggled for a long time how to broach the subject with her mother. In the end she didn’t. Couldn’t find the strength to bring it up with Socorro Rivera, a woman who had been so hurt by the choice of music over family. Instead doubling down on the ban and hoping she was doing the right thing.

* * *

Héctor kept trying to talk to Imelda. Some would call it wooing. The act of sitting outside her window and raising his voice in song. He sang every single thing he’d ever written for her. Strummed ever melody he had ever composed, hoping to tug on her heart enough that she would talk to him.

He craved her conversation. Her wit and observation and the clever way she looked at the world. Seeing her and her being unwilling to engage in discussion with him was the most painful part of their separation. He loved her. He’d always loved her. There had been people (in Shantytown specifically) who had found love in the afterlife. Who had found new souls to connect to; partners from another time or place that were the other half of their puzzle. It had never been that way for Héctor. He knew that Imelda was his other half, that Coco was the frame that made his life make sense, and there had never been anyone else for him.

So, even as he pressed forward, trying to engage her and reignite her interest, he mourned. Mourned the love he knew was lost, and the soulmate who continued to reject him. He found new energy in this mourning, a renewed dedication to getting over the bridge and seeing his baby girl, who was now well into her adulthood. She wouldn’t reject him. Not like Imelda had.

* * *

Enrique was a sweet, sensitive baby. He didn’t laugh easily or often, instead would watch the funny faces that his parents made with wide, curious eyes. Coco would sometimes sing to him in private as well, continuing the tradition she’d begun with Berto all those years ago, and delighted in the spark of interest that would light up his dark eyes.

Singing was less important now, as was passing on the legacy of her papa. His letters were still in her closet, but the box they were in was gathering dust. It had been a long time since she’d read over them, but that didn’t matter either. The words were carved deep on her subconscious, repeating sometimes in her dreams. 

What was important was keeping the family together. Making sure everyone was happy and healthy. When Elena’s mood dropped when Enrique was three months old and her breast milk dried up, from no apparent cause, the family held her up until her joy returned. When María—the woman they knew only as Victoria’s dear friend—came to the hacienda with a split lip and tears in her eyes, they banded around her, protecting her without a second thought.

Family was more important than music. Coco could see that now.

* * *

It was almost a perfect plan. Héctor had spent almost the whole year training the alebrijes of Shantytown, the ones with wings that could carry at least their own weight. Using scraps from discarded offerings (mostly of stale churros, though there were a few old bones there as well) to teach them how to fly in formation. Toads with crooked feathery wings, rabbits with ragged ears and faded lizards with translucent batwings.

They were a bit jumpy and jittery, not used to being shown kindness it seemed. It had taken time to gain their trust: weeks of lying on his back in the mud, singing softly and keeping his hands pointedly palm up. Eventually, one sniffed at his fingertips, then crept towards him. Another hopped into his lap, curling up and falling easily to sleep.

“Ay, cousin, you’re loco if you think that’s going to get you anywhere,” Cheech said, grinning. Silly Héctor and his silly schemes. He knew what everyone thought. But it wasn’t going to deter him, not in the slightest.

After gaining the trust of the alebrijes, it was an easy enough matter to teach them to come when called. He’d give a low, rolling whistle, and they would flock to him, sometimes sitting up on their haunches or flapping around his head, begging for a treat.

Then it was a case of trying to teach them how to fly where he wanted them to go. He practiced with pointing, then with talking, but sadly it didn’t seem to work. The only way he could get them to follow his lead, was by pretending to throw a treat. They’d scurry away, moving in an ungainly, hulking mass of rainbow feathers and shining skin, before landing in a squabbling pile.

It was going to be tricky.

That Día de Muertos, he rounded up his congregation, plying them with treats and crooning praises. When he first tried to lead them away from Shantytown a fair number balked, mostly the frogs and toads, who hopped back into the water and stared at him with nervous, frightened eyes. It didn’t really matter though, he had more than enough alebrijes to achieve what he wanted.

In a quiet corner of the station, he pulled himself apart, grimacing at the now easy removal of his limbs, and tied each section to the feet of the alebrijes. They sat in uncertain stillness as he did, watching him with wide, gleaming eyes, and when he eventually tried to mime throwing a treat, the rabbit who he’d tied his arm to hopped into the air with fright.

“Wait, wait, wait, stop!”

Despite his panicked shout, the creatures scattered, spreading his limbs in all directions. The lizard attached to his head landed on top of the station, curling its scaly body around him and lapping at the top of his head with a sticky tongue.

It took time to attract the attention of the guards. Eventually, Sofia clambered up onto the roof, exasperated and winded. She lay on the roof beside him for a long moment, before coaxing the lizard towards her with a treat.

“Héctor, this is getting ridiculous,” she said gently as she untied him. Holding his head gingerly in both hands, she forced him to make eye contact. “How long is this going to continue?”

Hurting, disappointed, saddened, Héctor met her gaze and cursed the sting of tears. Not knowing what else to say, he answered honestly.

“I… I don’t know.”

* * *

“Mama Coco?”

Coco stirred, blinked her eyes open. Afternoon sun was streaming into the bedroom, a warm orange that made her very tired. Enrique was standing by the bed, thumb tucked firmly into his mouth and his wide brown eyes shining. Behind him, in the doorway, Berto and Gloria were watching curiously. She pretended she didn’t see them, smiling at her youngest grandchild.

“Sorry I woke you, Mama Coco,” he said, words muffled around his thumb.

“That’s alright, m’ijo. What did you need?”

He cast an uncertain glance over his shoulder. Berto put a finger to his mouth, miming a dramatic shush, while Gloria circled her hands in a ‘go on’ motion. Turning his most innocent look back to her, Enrique dropped his hand from his mouth and asked in the sweetest voice he could probably muster, “Can you tell me about great grandpa?”

The bottom dropped out of her stomach. She looked at him carefully, a slow measured look, and he flushed and kicked at the floor.

“Now, why would you ask something like that?” She was careful to make sure her voice wasn’t harsh or disciplinary, instead she kept her tone soft and questioning. Despite the ban and despite how heightened the reaction to music was, she didn’t want to scare the children away. She didn’t want them to stop asking.

“Berto says he was a vampire, and that he tried to eat you, and if I’m not good he’s going to come eat me too.” Tears sprang into the corner of his eyes, shining in the golden light, and she cast a quick glare towards the door. Berto turned bright red and Gloria dug her elbow into his ribs.

Then she leaned down, gathered him close to her and leaned her cheek on his soft hair. “Of course he wasn’t a vampire, m’ijo. Your brother is making up silly stories to scare you.” Berto’s flush started to track down his neck and into his ears. A curt nod, beckoning him over, and he crept in with his hands linked behind his back.

“Sorry, Rique,” he said, gaze fixed firmly on the floor. Gloria followed her brother, a smug little smirk on her face, though she wilted a little when Coco turned her eyes and pinned her in place.

“And you two were hoping for, what exactly?” Coco asked, keeping the expectant tone in her voice so they realised it was not exactly a question.

“Just wanted some stories,” Gloria said, scuffing her feet.

“Wanted to know about the picture,” Berto added, flicking his eyes up to her.

“The picture doesn’t matter. We keep it up because we don’t have another photo of Mama Imelda, and it’s very important to have a photo on the ofrenda.” She thought of the torn scrap with her father’s face on it that still sat in the bottom of her closet, and felt a pang in her gut.

This answer didn’t satisfy them. It wasn’t really an answer at all. But they recognised they weren’t going to get anything else, so nodded and bolted. She watched them go, then lay back on the bed and covered her eyes. She was starting to get a headache.

* * *

He wasn’t playing the guitar this time. It was still slung behind his back, she’d seen the familiar curves behind the empty arches of his bones when she’d reached out of the window the slam closed the shutters. No, today he was just sitting out there, looking like a kicked puppy.

There was almost a weight to his presence. She could _feel_ him out there, the sheer force of his mind tugging at her subconscious. What she had called her gut in life, and now called her instinct, seemed to pull her towards him.

But she wouldn’t answer. She refused.

He had abandoned her in life, and she would reject him in death.


	18. 1986-1988

When Rosita died in 1986, the family didn’t know what to do. She had slipped and fallen on her way home from the market, and struck her head on a loose cobblestone. Though she had almost seemed to get better, she’d hit just the wrong place, and bled into the tough membrane around her skull. Despite being admitted to the hospital and given the best care possible, she had died surrounded by her family with a gentle smile on her face.

Deprived of their loving tía, Elena’s children became quiet and still, seeming to lose some of their spark. Enrique started crawling into bed with Berto, the two of them whispering about life and death and the afterlife until the sun rose. Coco knew, but didn’t have the heart to stop them, recognising that it was an important part of the grieving process. Julio, shocked at the sudden loss of his younger sister, did the opposite. He became bright and effervescent, bubbly and smiling, and the family was lifted on the light of his mood.

One night, as they dressed for bed, Coco glanced over her shoulder at her husband. “Mi amor, how can you be so happy? I appreciate it, so much, but I don’t understand how, when I know you miss Rosita more than any of us.”

Julio grinned at her, holding out his arms, and she went into them gladly. A gentle shiver passed through her and he murmured a soft comfort as he stroked her hair. “Rosita would have wanted it this way,” he whispered, and kissed her cheek. Though she had stooped a little with age, she remained a good ten or so centimetres taller than him, so he had to push up onto his toes to do so. “She hated gloom and melancholy, you know that.” He lay his head on her shoulder, held her close. “There’s no better way to honour her memory.”

Coco smiled, despite the pang in her stomach at his words. She needed to do more to honour her mother’s memory. To remember the woman she had been, and embody that in her own life.

And so, the next day, she started and finished the first pair of shoes in almost fifteen years.

* * *

Rosita quickly found a home in the Rivera compound. Her own family were in disarray, her father living with his sister beneath a bar, and her mother making furniture for a tiny little boutique. When Rosita offered to move in and help, Gabriela had declined.

“Thank you for the offer, m’ija,” she’d said, patting Rosita’s hand and smiling. “But you and your brother were always happier making shoes. I’m right around the corner whenever you want to visit, but I don’t think you really want to live with me.”

As soon as Imelda learned of this, she insisted on moving her daughter-in-law in, building an extension with her own room and space for her things. And Rosita had moved in. Shoes were not her passion, crafting leather and thread into functional footwear didn’t make her happy.

What made her happy was waking in the morning to the soft murmur of conversation beneath her feet. The ringing laughter of the twins responding to Imelda’s low flat sarcasm. While the content of those barbs was often missing, lost in distance and her own drowsy mind, the tone was absolutely unmistakable.

She loved the three of them, and how effortlessly they made her feel at home. Just as in life, they brought her in and held her close. In their eyes she was a Rivera, and always would be.

* * *

Victoria no longer lived in the Rivera hacienda. She had moved around the corner, into a small farmhouse that María owned. It had been just over ten years, and they were just as close as they had been that first fateful day María had snatched Berto from the road.

She’d been afraid to tell the family this. There had been a fear that they would think she was angry with them, or hated them, or didn’t want to be around them anymore. In truth it was just that she needed space, her own area, where she could walk around with her hair down, and wear pyjamas all day if she wanted.

Making shoes was still very important to her. She loved being in the workroom and surrounded by her family. She loved having Elena’s children run up and show the toys they’d been building, the worlds they’d crafted.

But she also loved building her own worlds.

When she got home after a long day of crafting shoes, she would pull up her chair in front of the window overlooking María’s fields. Look out at the lone tree that framed the sun so perfectly at this time of day. Then crack her knuckles, caress the keyboard, and begin to write.

“Evening, mi amor.” A gentle touch, brushing her hair away from her neck, and the warm press of a kiss against her cheek. She leaned away from the keyboard, turning and catching María’s face in her hands.

“Hola.” She brought María’s face down and the tips of their noses touched. “Did you have a good day?”

“Ah, as good as it can be with Tomás at the helm.” María rolled her eyes extravagantly and collapsed into the reading nook they’d set up beside Victoria’s desk. Tomás, her brother, was apparently not eager to share management of the farm with her. “How is your writing going?”

Victoria flushed, pulling the paper from the typewriter with a clatter and putting it face down on her manuscript. “Ay, it’s slow but steady.” A calloused fingertip gently caressed the stack of paper. It was a story based on dreams she’d had as a teenager, set in a jazz bar in the early nineteen thirties. A story of gangsters and alcohol and forbidden affairs, the smooth slow beats of jazz music underpinning it all. It was her best work to date.

* * *

Héctor didn’t go around to the Rivera compound often anymore. His spirit couldn’t take it: the constant rage and anger in Imelda’s eyes, the icy rejection when she turned her back. There wasn’t hatred there, at least he hoped there wasn’t, but whenever she glared at him something cracked keep inside him. He wasn’t sure how long he could last before his spirit shattered. So, he steered clear, keeping his head down and his eyes averted whenever he had to go through the Crafts District.

Every so often he would falter, find himself outside Rivera Shoes with his guitar on his lap and his fingers idly forming chords. He’d almost lost that hopeful little spark in the centre of his spirit, the hope that Imelda would forgive him. Almost, but not quite.

One day late in the 1980s, an unfathomably long time since his death, he was carefully tuning his guitar, teasing the pegs and brushing the strings. A few children were playing nearby, watching him curiously, tossing a faded tennis ball back and forth. Dashing back and forth, chasing the ball, was a terrier alebrije with a frantically twitching cat’s tail. He noticed both children were wearing finely crafted leather shoes, and knew there would be a stylised ‘R’ in their foot print.

“You’re here a lot,” one of the kids said, dropping the tennis ball. The terrier yapped joyfully and snapped it up in her jaws, shaking it furiously.

“Shouldn’t you be in the Arts District?” the other asked. It was good natured, not said out of cruelty.

He grinned at them, his spirit aching as it always did when he saw tiny children, dead before their time. “Music can’t be contained, niños.” He played an intricate little tune, singing along as they giggled. “I can’t help but notice you have Rivera shoes.” The girl nodded and smiled, while the boy tapped his heels and scuffed his toes. “I used to know Senora Imelda in life.”

They exchanged glances, then looked at him. He tucked his bare feet beneath the bench with a cough, hoping to hide the grey bones in shadow. “No, you didn’t. Senora Rivera never lets anyone go without shoes.”

Ah, too late then.

“I prefer to be barefoot.” He hoped they were too young still to notice how faded and shabby he was, that would be a further give away. “No matter. Tell me, niños, is she happy?”

“She made my shoes special,” the boy said. “She was laughing while she did ‘coz my feet are different sizes. She laughs a lot…”

Héctor smiled, relieved and glad to hear it. She deserved to be happy.


	19. 1989

It had been a long week. Three days in a row with temperatures over thirty degrees had left Santa Cecilia still and wilted. Humidity hung heavy in the air, fans beating against it helplessly and only managed to stir the heat. Low grey clouds built in the air, teasing the promise of rain that would only bring more humidity and more heat.

Victoria had pushed all the windows open, even had the door hanging wide on its hinges, desperate for the slightest movement of air. It was so hot, so unspeakably hot. No matter how much water she drank, she seemed to be permanently dehydrated, a headache pounding in her temples. It was the humidity, she was just constantly coated in sweat that couldn’t evaporate.

Not knowing what else to do, she pulled off her shirt and stood in front of her writing table, fanning herself and praying for a cool breeze. The front door shut with a click and she groaned with frustration.

“Mi amor, you’re shivering…”

María came into the study, her eyes wide with concern, but Victoria just flapped her hands.

“It’s too hot, María. I can’t handle it.” She felt María’s hands hover near her and tried to shake her head. The movement sparked a silvery jolt of pain in the base of her skull and she stilled with a whimper.

“Sit down, please.” María touched her, lightly, guiding her into the chair. Her hand was cool as she laid it across Victoria’s forehead, ignoring the sticky sweat. “You’re burning up! Are you feeling okay?”

Victoria didn’t move her head again. The pain in her neck had been too much. Instead, she mumbled and closed her eyes, feeling sweat trickling down her skin and the shuddering movement in her limbs. It wasn’t quite shivering, she realised dimly, it was more than that. Why would she be shivering if she wasn’t cold?

Though, it was getting pretty chilly in here. Her skin prickled with goosebumps and the shaking intensified.

“Ay dios mío, I’m calling the doctor.”

Victoria tried to protest, even as María’s comforting presence moved away, but didn’t have the strength. With a low sigh, she slid down in the chair, wincing at the tight ache in her shoulders, and brought her jittering hands to her chest.

The next thing she knew, María was putting a cool, wet cloth on her forehead and reassuring her that the doctor would be here soon. Time became funny after that. Bending and stretching in ways it had never done before. When the doctor—Juan Ramirez, a short little man who’d taken care of her since she was a baby—finally arrived, she was only vaguely aware of his presence. She could hear the quiet murmur as María and Doctor Ramirez discussed her. The timeline, the severity, the symptoms. María’s voice grew louder and shriller as they talked, distress and fear weaselling through the fog building in Victoria’s mind. And though she fought to retain her consciousness, it was just too much, and everything went dark.

* * *

The first Imelda knew of it was a cold finger tracing down her spine, a delicate tremor that rattled her bones. Her foot reflexively lifted from the pedal, her fingers pausing in the gentle pressure on the leather. At the sudden silence, her brothers lifted their heads and fixed her with identical confused looks, while Rosita poked her head from the kitchen.

“Mama Imelda? Are you okay?” Rosita asked.

Imelda’s eyes were fixed on the window. She expected a colourful rainbow creature to knock against the glass any second, but it didn’t come. With a loose-boned shimmy, she shook the feeling off and forced a thin smile at her family. “I thought I felt something, it must have been my imagination.”

There was an uncomfortable pause. Then Felipe said uncertainly, “I think I felt something too, hermana.”

“Perhaps…” Óscar hesitated, ran a finger over his moustache and looked at his twin. “Perhaps we should go to the station, Imelda… We may be needed soon.”

She fixed him with a level stare. Inside her chest, a cold fist seemed to close around her spine and squeeze. She put a hand over the spot, where her heart had beat in life, and lowered her eyes. “We’re done for today, I think. Let’s pack up and head to the station.”

Clean up was quick, the completed shoes put away in boxes lined with delicate tissue paper, the ones still in progress put into a massive dresser with multiple little drawers labelled with the customer’s names. When they exited the shop, she was relieved to see that Héctor wasn’t waiting for her. He had not been hanging around the store as often these days, and when he was he no longer tried to engage with her, just sat outside and strummed song after song. The constant gentle chords tugged at her, but she pointedly ignored them. She had a spine of steel, and Héctor would do well to remember that.

Without another thought of her husband, she rushed with her family to the station.

* * *

The hospital was cold and clinical and stank of detergent. Coco sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair holding Julio’s hand. His head leaned heavily against his shoulder, his face blank and wet with tears. Across from them was Elena, her face in her hands. The children were still at home with Franco, confused and afraid as to why their family had packed up and closed the workshop early. Gloria had been the only one to really pick up the mood of the adults, becoming quiet and solemn. For her, at least, the memory of losing Tía Rosita only three years earlier was still very fresh.

María was pacing by the door. Following the path where fathers, lovers, children had worn a scuffed circle in the linoleum. The hospital had almost not allowed her into the waiting room. Family members only, they had said, with a suspicious narrowing of their eyes. But the Riveras had banded around her, Coco and Elena both linking their arms with hers, and insisted.

Doctor Ramirez was not a doctor at this hospital. As soon as he’d brought Victoria to the small local hospital in Santa Cecilia he had called for an ambulance. Put needles in her arms and drawn blood. Given her fluids. Supported her airway when her oxygen levels had fallen. Held María’s hand and murmured soft reassuring words as the other ambulance officers had strapped Victoria to a stretcher and rolled her from the room.  Though they’d asked him to come along, he had stayed behind in Santa Cecilia, insisting someone else might need him.

The senior doctor entered the room. One look at his solemn face sent María into hysterical sobbing, crashing to her knees, and Elena rushed to her side. The doctor walked right to Coco, extending one hand. “I’m sorry, Senora Rivera, I’m afraid your daughter is incredibly unwell.”

Coco didn’t answer right away. Instead she got up, pulling Julio with her, and walked to where María was kneeling on the linoleum, helping the crying woman to her feet. When she looked to the doctor, that inner strength shone in her eyes. “Take us to her.”

Uncertainty twisted his expression. “I’m not sure if that would be allowed. Victoria is in intensive care, we have a limit on visitors…”

“I don’t care,” Coco said, cutting across him even as he started to trail off. “If Victoria is dying then she needs her family around her.” Then, repeating herself, putting weight on each word. “Take. Us. To. Her.”

He flinched, confirming her worst fear, then nodded. “Alright. Follow me.” His eyes fixed on María, who had now buried her face into Elena’s shoulder. “Family only, I’m afraid.”

Elena glared at him, her spine stiffening, and when she spoke Coco’s heart swelled with pride. “She’s coming with us. She is Victoria’s family just as much as we are.”

The doctor’s lips tightened. Distaste flashed in his eyes, darkening them. But in the face of Coco and Elena’s glares, he wilted and nodded. “Follow me.”

There was only one private room in intensive care. Tubes and wires crossed each other, leading back to bulky machines that illuminated the room with irregular blinking light. Victoria lay in the bed, connected to all of them, a sickly grey tint to her brown skin. When he showed them in, the doctor went around to each machine and pressed various buttons, silencing the beeping.

“I’ll…leave you to it,” he said softly, then gestured to a large button on the wall. “If you need anything just push that button for assistance.”

Even before he had left the room, María had broken from Elena’s supporting grip and knelt by the bed. Her hand trembled as it curled around Victoria’s, carefully avoiding the blood-stained tape securing a drip. The rest of the family followed, crowding around Victoria as best they could. Each of them reaching out and touching Victoria in some way: laying a hand on her knee or elbow. Coco brushed some hair off her forehead and pressed a gentle kiss there. The skin beneath her lips was cold and dry, barely human, and grief squeezed her heart.

Victoria held on. For a long time. There was even time for Franco to bring the children, to give them the chance to say goodbye. When they came in, Gloria was already crying, Enrique was solemn and serious, and Berto had tears glimmering in his eyes. They each kissed her, told her how much they loved her, squeezed her hands and stroked her cheeks. Enrique left the room quickly after that, crying into his hands, and Gloria soon followed. Berto, however, stayed with them. At seventeen he was old enough, by Coco’s estimation, to witness death, and when his siblings left he refused to, standing with one arm comfortingly around his mother.

The doctor came in every so often to check on them. Long past the end of his shift. He kept the nurses out as well, giving them a little bit of privacy.

Eventually, just after sun set, Victoria let out her last rattling breath. Surrounded by her family. Her hand held firmly by her love. The ghost of a smile on her lips.

* * *

They all felt it. The cold shudder of a Rivera’s last breath. Imelda gripped her brothers’ hands tightly, and Rosita let out a low sigh. They looked at each other, sad and worried and uncertain. They didn’t know, after all, who it had been. And so, when a tall lanky skeleton dressed in a loose hospital gown entered the station, they were all dumbstruck. How could it be Victoria? She was too young, too vital. She had been so healthy in life, it didn’t make any sense.

“Abuelita,” she said with a dazed smile. “Tíos, tía… It’s good to… see you… again…” Her voice started to hitch and skip. A breathless little sob burst from her lips.

That was all it took. They enveloped her in their arms, held her close and surrounded her with family. Her hands closed on Imelda’s arms, gripping with panicky tightness, and she began to cry.

“Hush, m’ija, it’s okay. We’ve got you,” Imelda said gently, guiding the much taller skeleton’s face to her shoulder. “You’re safe. Let’s take you home.”

They guided her from the station. There were other skeletons outside, but none of them gave the group a second glance. Such sights were common where the newly dead were welcomed. Victoria calmed a little on the long walk back to the Rivera hacienda, but Imelda wasn’t sure how much was acceptance and how much was shock. It was awful to have died so young, so unexpectedly.

And, of course, at the worst possible time, Héctor was waiting outside the workshop, his guitar held loosely against his body. The others didn’t even look at him as Imelda hurried them inside. She pulled the door shut, separated them, before turning. Anger blazed in her, bright and hot as the sun, when she saw the concern in his eyes.

“Imelda…I’m…” he started, his voice shaking.

“Don’t. Talk.” She glared at him, hating him at that moment, even as he continued to meet her eyes. “Don’t you dare say a word. How dare you? How dare you try to wheedle your way back into this family?”

He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again. Hurt and grief and sorrow filled his eyes, and the sight made her anger intensify.

“I want nothing to do with you,” she hissed. “Stay away from my family. Do you hear me?”

He nodded. Gold tooth winking in the moonlight as he chewed on his lip. The image of him in life rose in her memory, tempting her into softening. Instead, in a final burst of rage and grief, unable to control herself, she ripped the guitar from his hands.

Eyes widening with shock, hands outstretched in supplication, he pleaded, “Imelda, don’t–“

But it was too late. She smashed it. Slammed it into the ground until it splintered and cracked, strings snapping and frets snapping off to clatter on the ground. Héctor flinched as though being struck with each musical crash, shrinking into himself. Eventually only the fingerboard remained intact, and she threw it at him.

“Get out of here, Héctor. I never want to see you again.”

She watched as he scurried away, his head low and the fingerboard clasped tightly in one hand. The rage boiled away, leaving an acid taste in her mouth and a weak tremble in her body. She hadn’t meant to be so angry. She hadn’t meant to destroy the guitar. She hadn’t meant to lash out. It had been grief and hurt and anger all mixed into one uncontrollable outburst. Looking after Héctor, she felt a brief stab of regret, but it passed.

Imelda took a deep, calming breath, then went inside, ready to look after her granddaughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the sadness :( I have posted a fluffy one-shot to try and make up for it! It's called Offerings and will...hopefully make up for it?


	20. 1990-1995

After Victoria’s death, María didn't come to the Rivera hacienda very often. Without Victoria to tie them together there wasn’t really any reason for her to keep coming around. Elena continued to quietly take food over to her, and they would have polite conversation, but the close connection was gone. After a year the visits came so infrequently that they were hardly worth mentioning at all.

Berto was the one who put the most effort into maintaining the relationship. He’d seen how María had been impacted by his tía’s death, the heartbreak and grief that had struck her, and had vowed that he would be a support as best he could. He came around after work a few times a week, to have a cup of coffee or play a game of scrabble. Mostly, though, they talked, reminisced, grieved together. It helped immensely, having someone there to talk to.

It was through María that he met Carmen.

One day when he went around, there was a young woman helping to pack up Victoria’s desk. Long brown hair tied up in a ponytail, shiny pink lip gloss and a grin that revealed gapped front teeth. And though she was a little on the plain side, he was absolutely smitten from the first shy little smile.

María had taken one look at the way he acted around Carmen, and set them both to cleaning the desk, in such close quarters that their shoulders bumped more than once.

“Sorry,” he said again, blushing and averting his eyes, trying to shift away from her.

“It’s okay.” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and glanced at him. “You’re very red. Maybe take off your jacket?”

The blood that filled his face was so hot he thought his skin was going to melt off. Uncertain what else to do, he nodded and shucked the jacket off his shoulders as she leaned forward and pushed open the window. The cool breeze on his arms felt absolutely marvellous and he pulled at the neck of his shirt to get some fresh air onto his skin.

“Ay dios mío!”

He jolted at Carmen’s shout, eyes widening. When he looked at her, concerned, she was staring at him with her hands over her mouth.

“What? What is it? Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded, then grabbed his sleeve. Her hand was warm, but not unpleasantly so. “That’s Hugo Sánchez’s number, sí?”

He blinked at her, then down at his shirt. Yes, he was wearing Sánchez’s Real Madrid number today. And yes, his last name was on the back above the gleaming number, but his first wasn’t. So, if she knew it…

“You like Real Madrid?”

“Like!? Real Madrid is my team, it’s my _religion_ , and after Sánchez’s performance in La Liga he is my priest.” She grinned, revealing that little gap between her front teeth, and he melted.

They spent the rest of the day cleaning the desk, sharing their favourite moments of Real Madrid over the past year, and their shoulders touching comfortably.

* * *

“Cousin, are you in there?”

Héctor groaned and tucked his knees up against his chest, the movement making the hammock rock ever so slightly. The roughly constructed door scraped across the floor as it was pushed open.

“I can hear you, Cousin, I’m coming in.”

“Go away, Cheech,” Héctor said in a flat voice. “I don’t want visitors.”

“I brought drinks.” Footsteps on creaking floorboards. Sloshing liquid in a half full bottle. “An offering? C’mon, chamaco, you need to get up.”

Cheech pulled the top of the hammock open and grinned as Héctor glared at him. “Go _away_ , Cheech.” Tugging pointlessly at the hammock with trembling fingers.

Not releasing the frayed canvas, Cheech shook his head solemnly, using his other hand to wave the bottle of tequila above Héctor’s head. “I’ll go away _after_ you have a drink with me.”

“Fine.” Keeping his voice flat. Héctor heaved himself out of the hammock, landing in a dusty pile, not even flinching as his foot fell off and skittered towards the edge of the open wall. He rolled his eyes and huffed, his calcaneus skidding to a halt and his foot hopping back towards him.

“Can’t drink as a pile of bones,” Cheech said, unfazed, and sat on the ground beside him. Two glasses appeared from his back pocket and he filled them with tequila as Héctor groaned and clicked his upper body back together. “Salud!”

“Salud,” Héctor echoed in a low, annoyed voice, and winced when Cheech tapped their glasses together. The tequila burned his mouth and he coughed. “Dios mío, Cheech, did you drain this out of the river?”

That same old rattling laugh, like reeds in high wind, and Cheech drained his own glass with a melodramatic gesture. “Ah, that’s good stuff.” A contented belch.

Héctor rolled his eyes and screwed up his face. “I don’t know why you thought this would make me feel better, amigo. I didn’t need to lose my sense of taste on top of everything else.”

“What have you lost? So she smashed your guitar, so what?”

“My heart, my love, my soul…” Wistful and hurt. He looked out over the water and put his hand over his ribs, fingers dipping between the bones into the space his heart had been in life. Then, his voice barbed and harsh, “She smashed _your_ guitar, Cheech. I was just borrowing it, remember?”

Cheech, to his credit, waved his hands in a dismissive gesture. “You’d had it for decades, it was yours.” This annoyed Héctor to no end. He didn’t want to be consoled; he just wanted to vanish. To breathe his last breath and disintegrate into dust. This afterlife was hell. “Though to be fair, amigo, I’m not going to lend you another one.”

“Fine, I don’t want it anyway.” Héctor crossed his arms and tucked his legs up tight against his body. “I’m done with music, Cheech. There’s no song left in me.”

There was a long silence following this. Cheech sighed and poured another pair of drinks, clinking his glass against Héctor’s and motioning to drink up. “Alright, Cousin. No more music, you got it.”

* * *

Enrique was the best man at Berto’s wedding. Carmen wore a brilliant white dress with a million ruffles and frills, her hair in an elaborate up-do and extensive makeup. They had only been dating for three months but, as Berto told him in a slurred whisper on his bachelor night, when you know you know. Enrique, who had had multiple crushes through his life but had never felt the electric bolt of connection his brother described, just nodded and smiled. They were a good match, he had to agree.

Carmen had been disappointed to have no music. She’d complained to Gloria about it, apparently, but had been too chicken to raise it with Elena or Coco. Instead, there was speeches and jokes and constant laughter. The family banded together to welcome this strange, wonderful woman into their midst. Elena, who had initially been a bit surprised at how quickly they had formalised their relationship, was absolutely won over when Carmen begged to learn the shoe-making process. She had an idea for a whole line of swanky, classy, comfortable heels, and wanted to learn how to do it.

After most of the festivities were over, and Carmen and Berto had driven off in a tiny Volkswagen beetle with tin cans tied to the back, Enrique came and sat beside Coco. She’d been poking people the whole wedding, inspiring wild peals of laughter.

“Are you feeling okay, Mama Coco?” he asked gently, seeing the tremble in her hands as she folded them together, the extra shine in her eyes.

“Yes, m’ijo.” She smiled at him, not bothering to dash away the tear that tracked down the deep wrinkles in her cheek. “Takes me back, is all.”

Although concern nudged against the back of his mind, he returned her smile and leaned his head on her shoulder. It had been an emotional day, it wasn’t surprising that she would be a bit teary at the end of it. The first of her grandchildren to get married, after all, was an important milestone.

* * *

Imelda had been very careful to make sure Victoria was supported in death. It had taken a while to adjust for her. Sometimes her crying would wake the others at night, and they were often at a loss how to comfort her.

The answer, surprisingly enough, came after her first Día de Muertos. When they’d crossed the bridge, her grip on Imelda’s hand had been panicky, and crossing the barrier into the Land of the Living had taken her a moment of deep breaths and nervous glances. But when they got to the hacienda, everything changed. The photo they had picked for the ofrenda was perhaps not the most flattering—an unimpressed expression coupled with crossed arms gave a very humourless impression—but warmth wrapped around her at the sight.

She’d known she was on the ofrenda, of course. It would have been impossible for her to even get to the Land of the Living if she hadn’t been, but seeing her picture illuminated with gently flickering candles and surrounded by orange marigold petals was a huge relief. María was there, sipping tequila and smiling with Berto, and she had brought her own offering for Victoria.

It was her typewriter. The crooked ‘T’ key and intricately folded ribbon. Victoria couldn’t help but cry at the sight of it, touched and relieved. She lugged it back to the Land of the Dead that night, every joint in her upper body straining under the solid weight of it, and put it on a small table under her bedroom window, so she could look out at the view she sat there. The Rivera hacienda had extended up rather than out, like all buildings in the Land of the Dead, and her bedroom was up on the fifth floor, with her window looking out over the street and the water beneath it.

Pulling up a seat, she traced the tip of her fingers over the keys and smiled. Finally. She was home.


	21. 1996-1997

Enrique was always looking for new ideas. Everyone else had their own fantastic lines of shoes, their own styles. The unique little flairs that were part of the Rivera Shoes charm. The actual crafting shoes was not Enrique’s problem: the issue was that he was just using the same styles that people had taught him. There was nothing that people could point to and say that he had made that shoe.

He’d gone to spend a week in Mexico City. A holiday, he’d said, a bit of a break. A research trip, he had thought. There were some fine shoe shops in Mexico City, and he planned to look through all of them. Get some inspiration.

There were a lot of interesting styles that he had seen on this trip. He’d taken sketches and scribbled notes in a little red leather notebook, stroking his moustache and narrowing his eyes as he wandered through every shoe store he could find.

One day, close to the end of his week, he’d been kneeling at the back of one of the larger stores, sorting through the lowest rack. The most interesting shoes were usually tucked out of view, after all.

“Can I help you?”

He jolted out of his concentration, twisting around on his heels to look up at the speaker. A woman, around his age, with big sparkling eyes and an intrigued tilt to her eyebrows. He grinned awkwardly and shook his head.

“No, no, señorita, apologies. I was just looking to see if there was anything…interesting…” He realised he was kneeling in front of a rack of heels and flushed. “For my…uh…”

She giggled, a musical sound that made his heart flutter. “For the Riveras, right?”

Shock overcame the rush of attraction and he gaped at her. “The Riveras?”

“Yeah.” She pointed to his shoes, tracing the stylised ‘R’ with her fingertip in mid-air. “Those are Rivera boots, right?”

“How did you know that?” Slightly dazed.

“They make the best shoes,” she said, giggling that musical giggle again. “Everyone in my dance class wears them. They never wear out!”

He got to his feet, his notebook sitting forgotten on the floor, and held out one hand. “Enrique Rivera,” he said. Smiling. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Luisa,” she replied, her grip firm as she shook his hand. “The pleasure is all mine.”

And boom, there it was, that electric bolt Berto had told him about. Rattling him to his core and leaving a dopey smile on his face.

* * *

Héctor found it very difficult to adjust to life without music. It was easy enough not to play: without access to an instrument he wasn’t subject to temptation. Harder was trying to avoid it. It had been part of his life for so long, the loss of it left an empty hollow in his spirit. It hurt almost as much as the final pang of grief he had felt for Imelda.

He still loved her. Of course he did. He had laboured under the idea that she still loved him too, that under the layers of anger there was still a core of caring. He did not think that anymore. The abandonment of his death when Coco had been so young was clearly something she couldn’t recover from. Héctor wasn’t interested in pushing her anymore.

Instead, he refocused his attention completely on the bridge. On Día de Muertos. On getting across. Coco was in her seventies now; she would not live forever. And if she was the last person who remembered him, then he had to see her in the Land of the Living. Because when she died, he would too.

This year, he pulled himself apart again and tried to reverse-pickpocket bones into people’s bags or the baskets they took to bring back their offerings. Sadly, on sneaking his unbroken tibia into an oversized pocket, he was spotted. He was not, after all, a thief, and subtlety was not one of his strong suits.

Caught by the arm and unable to run away on his cracked remaining leg, he grinned in what he hoped was a charming and placating way.

“Oops, my mistake,” he said, keeping his tone light and innocent. Hoping he could play this off as some sort of misunderstanding.

The guard, a fresh skeleton Héctor hadn’t seen before, didn’t buy it. As he was dragged out he spotted Sofia, walking towards the checkpoint in her uniform, and averted his eyes, hoping she didn’t see him. In previous years, she had been so kind to him, and he didn’t want her to see him like this.

For the first time in decades, he spent the night locked up in the gaol.

* * *

Julio had been losing a lot of weight over the past year. This was not necessarily a bad thing; he had grown quite portly in his old age, but he hadn’t been trying to either. He just wasn’t hungry, it seemed. Elena would put out huge family meals, the platters overloaded with delicious smelling food, but he would just look at the options. Pick at the few little morsels Elena would put on his plate. Shrug when she asked if he wanted more. 

“I’m not hungry, m’ija,” he said with a smile. “I don’t need anymore.”

Losing weight was one thing. The niggling pain in his stomach was something else entirely. He tried to keep it quiet, but Gloria noticed the pallor in his cheeks and the way his hand kept bracing on his upper stomach whenever he got up, and had called the doctor.

Doctor Juan Ramirez was mostly retired now, only doing home visits when he felt like it. Luckily, Doctor Isabella Ramirez, his daughter, had taken over. The same day that Gloria called, she popped in, doing a home visit of her own to see him. They sat together in the living room, Julio reclining and Isabella sipping coffee as she listened. Coco perched herself beside the window, sketching patterns in a notebook and pretending not to listen.

The kind, warm smile on her round face faded as he talked, then was replaced by a worried frown.

“Is it okay if I feel your stomach, Julio?” she asked. He nodded and pulled his shirt up, lifting his head to watch as she pressed warm hands into his now flat abdomen. “Head down,” she said and he complied. She felt every bit of his abdomen, returning again and again to the inverted V beneath his ribs. There was no pain, he noted with some relief, but clearly something had caught her attention. When she sat back down, her face was grim and he felt the first spike of worry needle his heart. “There’s something in your stomach,” she said gently. “Coupled with your symptoms, I would recommend some further testing.” At those words, Coco moved closer, one hand resting on her husband’s shoulder.

“Is it cancer?” he asked, his voice trembling. Isabella took his hand, squeezed it, maintained eye contact.

“Sadly, it’s very likely,” she said. Even though the words were frightening, he was glad she answered him honestly. “But I swear, Julio.” Her eyes shifted and met Coco’s, briefly, before returning to Julio’s. “No matter what the results are, I’ll be here to help.”

* * *

Imelda tapped her foot and crossed her arms, eyes narrowed as she craned her neck to see over the people in front of her. The line was stretching out of the checkpoint, not seeming to move at all, extending all the way back to the doors of the station. When Óscar touched her shoulder she looked at him, irritated.

“No need to be annoyed, hermana, the night is young. We’ll have plenty of time in the Land of the Living.”

“I suppose,” she said, rather grudgingly. “I just don’t understand what’s taking so long.”

He shrugged and smiled. Behind him, Felipe was cracking jokes and nudging Victoria, trying to get her to smile, to no avail. Rosita was giggling at each punchline, as she always did. They clearly didn’t mind that the line was taking its time this year. Imelda wasn’t sure why she was so on edge.

Taking a deep breath and trying to settle the anxiety curling inside her, she looked ahead. There was a flutter of movement ahead, catching her eye, and she squinted as she tried to make it out.

It was Héctor. Recognisable even from this distance, he was scurrying back and forth on the checkpoint’s roof in an apparent panic. In his hands was a long, uneven stick, the end held in front of him bouncing and swaying as he moved. It was like a pole vault, she realised, at the same moment he lunged forward, spiked the stick towards the ground and vanished from sight.

Her mouth dropped open, her eyes widened. A quick glance at her family confirmed they had not seen anything out of the ordinary.

She took a deep calming breath. Turned to her family. Almost said something, the words threatening behind her teeth, then swallowed them back. They didn’t need to know. Óscar and Felipe obviously didn’t recognise Héctor, or if they did they’d never said anything to her in the years he’d lurked outside the workshop. Rosita and Victoria had never known him. There was no need to discuss it now.

When the guards dragged him down the line towards the station, his head low and his body limp in their grip, she tightened her lips and looked resolutely away. Héctor wasn’t her responsibility anymore. And when the line started to move as normal, she didn’t look back towards him and didn’t even glance at the cracked, rickety pole vault lying abandoned just outside the checkpoint.


	22. 1998

Two days after Julio was formally diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Carmen had sat with Berto on the edge of their bathtub and blinked in shock at the little blue plus. They had been trying and trying to get pregnant, in the years since their wedding—and maybe a month or two before too, if they were totally honest—but with no luck. Now, with his Abuelo was so sick and so weak, was the worst possible time.

“We have to tell him, Berto,” Carmen said, wiping away a tear. Was it joy or was it sorrow? Sometimes it was hard to tell. “He has to know. Soon. Today, even.”

“I don’t know how…” Berto chewed his lower lip and rubbed the back of his head. “Maybe Papa could…”

“Alberto Franco Rivera, you are _not_ letting your father tell Julio about the baby,” Carmen said, her voice sharp and her hand covering her lower stomach, as though to shield the baby growing inside from this outrage. “I can’t believe you would even _think_ it.”

He flinched and quailed under the face of her anger, thinking about Julio’s thin pale face. The news of his impending great grandchild might be too much for his poor frail heart to take. Then, a flash of inspiration. He could get Enrique to help him! Of course, it was so obvious. Rique would be the perfect messenger.

“Certainly, dear heart, I’ll go tell him now.” He kissed her cheek, squeezed her hand. Then, ignoring the suspicious narrowing of her eyes, he bolted from the room and headed through the courtyard.

Rique’s bedroom was on the other side, a room big enough for only a single bed and a little dresser. As Berto approached, he had to duck beneath the curled cord that stretched from the wall-mounted phone into the crack of Enrique’s door. Berto could hear soft murmurs and then a raucous outburst of laughter.

He didn’t bother knocking.

“Woah, Berto, what’s the big idea?” Enrique sputtered, putting the phone to his chest and flushing bright red. “You could knock!” Then, “Hey!” as Berto pulled the phone out of his hands.

“Hi, Luisa? It’s Berto.”

“Oh…” Her voice was tinny through the headset, but clear enough that Berto could hear the embarrassment. “Hi there, how are you doing, Berto?”

“Sorry to interrupt your call, but I need Enrique for something.” Rique’s glare intensified and Berto held up one finger in placation.

“Yeah, sure, that’s fine.” Luisa cleared her throat and added in a shy little voice, “Tell Rique I’ll call him back later.”

“Will do, thanks.” Pressing one thumb into the button beneath the earpiece, hanging up the call, he cut across Enrique’s annoyed grumble. “Carmen’s pregnant.”

The grumble turned into a whooping trill of joy, and Rique was up and hugging him before Berto could blink. “Ay, congratulations! That’s wonderful news!”

“Thanks, Rique.” Berto patted his brother’s shoulder. “Now you can tell Papa Julio!”

“Oh no, no, no.” Enrique pulled back and patted Berto’s cheek with one hand. “There is no way I’m going to tell Papa Julio this. We’ll go together, huh? I’ll be your backup.”

Nausea cramped in Berto’s gut, rising in his throat, and he coughed. Rique grinned, clearly enjoying himself far more than he should be. “Fine,” Berto said, patting the side of his fist on his chest. “Fine, fine, let’s get this over with.”

Rique kept a firm grip on Berto’s elbow as they approached the living room, making sure that he couldn’t bolt for freedom. Inside, Julio was in his recliner, snoring dramatically while Coco sketched and half-watched _La Mentira_ on the small television on a side table.

“Berto has an announcement!” Enrique said as soon as the door clicked shut behind them, ignoring the horrified glare shot in his direction.

Automatically, Coco muted the television and Julio snorted, twitched, blinked his eyes open. Rique guided Berto to the couch and sat beside him with a pointed nudge to the ribs.

With a nervous cough, Berto leaned forward and took his grandfather’s hand. “I…uh…wanted to tell you that Carmen and I…” He grimaced and glanced at Enrique.

Further words were, apparently, not necessary. Mama Coco brightened, like a sun coming from behind a cloud, and she clapped her hands to her mouth. “Oh, m’ijo, are you saying...? A baby? You’re going to have a baby?”

Unable to find his voice, Berto nodded. Watching Julio’s face closely for any signs of shock or fading or pain. Instead, Julio folded his hands on his stomach and smiled a pleased little smile.

Softly, beneath the excited crying of Coco, Julio murmured, “I’m going to live to meet that baby, m’ijo. Don’t you worry about it.”

* * *

There was a new skeleton in Shantytown. She’d crept in at night, her cheeks streaked with tears, limping on a cracked forefoot. Héctor had been awake, as he almost always was, and trying to scrub dust out of his jacket. It was not really working. The seams were too fragile for him to really put his elbow into it, and he’d already poked a hole through the back. When he heard the crying, he pulled the jacket on and wandered outside.

“Hola!” he called, waving one hand. The woman flinched, drew her arms tighter around herself, and whirled towards him. When her weight landed on her broken foot, she staggered. Héctor darted forward and caught a pinwheeling arm before she could fall into the river. “Are you okay?”

“Maybe.” She blinked at him, scrubbing at her cheeks. “Am I in the right place?”

He looked at her, the faded patterns on her face, the diagonal cracks in the long thin bones of her foot, her torn and dusty dress. Then smiled, trying to be comforting. “Yes, I think so.” Steadying her, he caught one hand and shook it. “I’m Héctor.”

“Chelo,” she said. Winced when her weight landed on her cracked foot again.

“Welcome to the family,” Héctor said and put an arm around her. “Let’s go get you patched up.”

* * *

During Carmen’s pregnancy, Julio had become thinner and frailer and sicker. The cancer had spread into his liver, then into his spine, and he spent a lot of time lying in bed, dozing on a cloud of morphine. Isabella Ramirez was true to her word and continued to visit the home to give him medications and counsel the family.

There was an odd quiet in the Rivera household. A pre-mourning, almost. They all understood what was happening, that Julio could die any day now. So when, early one morning, the hacienda rang with pained screams, everyone was immediately alert.

Carmen was in labour. It progressed quickly, much faster than she would have liked, and she was shifted to a bathtub half-filled with warm, clean water. Coco had rung Isabella immediately, and by the time she arrived there was a hint of blood in the water.

The baby was born less than an hour later. Initially a little limp, a brisk rub with a soft towel inspired an outraged shriek tapering into a healthy, wailing cry.

“It’s a boy,” Isabella said, smiling and laying the baby on Carmen’s chest. “Congratulations.”

Carmen kissed the baby’s head, closing her eyes and smiling as tears spilled down her cheeks. Then, she lifted him and gently deposited him into Berto’s arms. “Show the family, mi amor, I need to rest for a moment.”

Cradling the baby against his chest, he bent and kissed her. “We need a name first.”

“Abel,” she said, and settled into the bath with a smile. “After my Abuelo.”

He nodded, then backed out of the room, leaving Isabella at his wife’s side. The family were so excited to meet baby Abel. They fawned and mooned and cooed over his little red face, the gulping cry, the thick black hair still matted to his scalp.

Coco laid a wrinkled hand on Berto’s arm and whispered into his ear, “Julio is not well, m’ijo. His breathing is…very bad.”

They shared a glance. Sensing the change in energy, everyone else parted and allowed him through. Julio was sleeping in a hospital bed in the living room, beside the window. Even just stepping through the door, Berto could hear the irregular snoring quality to his breathing.

“Papa Julio?” He rocked Abel, trying to keep him quiet as they entered the room. The smell of detergent almost overpowered the scent of illness, bitter and oily and sticking in the back of Berto’s nose.

Julio was basically skin and bones, thin hands folded over his chest, his mouth hanging open. When Berto reached the bedside and nudged him, he drifted back to consciousness with a snuffling gasp. Rheumy eyes slid open and fixed groggily on Berto. “Oh, m’ijo…” His lips twitched, a wan shadow of the kind smile he had had in youth. “How’re you?”

“I wanted you to meet someone,” Berto said. His voice was hushed, respectful. Vaguely aware that the rest of the family had filed in behind him and were watching. He rested Abel on Julio’s stomach, keeping one hand to steady him. “This is my son.” Smiling even as tears poured down his face. “Abel Julio Rivera…”

* * *

In the Land of the Dead, it was tears all around. The moment Julio came through the gate in his billowing hospital gown, Rosita was on him. She lifted him into her arms, spinning him around, then leaning her cheek on the top of his head.

“I’ve missed you, hermano,” she said through her tears, and he hugged her as tight as his bones would allow.

“I missed you too.” He pulled back, smiling at her, then, in a friendly teasing tone, “I guess you really were big-boned.”

Rosita laughed, a giggling little snort, and punched his shoulder. “Oh shut up, chaparrito.”

When Julio spotted his daughter, standing nervously between her uncles, the world seemed to slow down. Her cheeks were dry: Victoria had never been much of a crier. Despite this, when he held his arms open and she stepped into them, he felt a single drop splash on the top of his skull.

“I’m so glad to see you, m’ija,” he said softly. “I’m so glad you’re well…”

She hugged him tight, swallowing back a little sob. “I… I missed you, Papa…”


	23. 1999-2004

It would take a lot of convincing to move Luisa from Mexico City to Santa Cecilia. The community was so small in comparison, a town where everyone knew everyone and a new face was noticed. Luisa was not interested in being the newest topic for the town gossips. Every time Enrique asked, she would shake her head and cross her arms and politely decline. “It’s not the place for me, Rique,” she’d say.

Hopefully today that would change.

Enrique sat in the train carriage, nervously fiddling with sleeve of his camisa de Yucatán, one hand steadying the box on his lap. Beside him, Berto was babbling about the latest style of heel Carmen was trying out, and how silly Gloria had looked attempting to totter around the workshop in them, all of the bugs they needed to work out in the design. Enrique was not partaking in this, turning the conversation into more of a rant. His eyes were fixed outside, following the lines of the horizon and flicking past the buildings that became gradually more frequent as they approached Mexico City.

“Ready, hermano?” Berto asked when the train pulled to a shuddering halt. Trying not to feel nervous fluttering in his stomach, Enrique nodded. Perhaps sensing this, Berto grinned and punched Rique’s shoulder. “You’ll be fine, promise.”

Sure. All fine. What could possibly go wrong?

Nausea rose in his throat and he swallowed to try to suppress it. When he stood, his legs didn’t seem to work, and he stumbled against Berto, who steadied him with a smile. Enrique took a deep, calming breath, then tucked the box beneath his arm and strode confidently from the train. He refused to hesitate. Striding without even looking around until he reached the house Luisa lived with her parents.  Lifted one fist, ready to knock, then froze.

Berto finally caught up, huffing a little, and rapped his knuckles on the wood. “No backing out now, Rique,” he said with a wink, then ducked away out of sight.

The door opened. Luisa’s mother stood there, wearing a floury apron and holding a mixing spoon. She grinned when she saw him, a knowing glint in her eye, and he flushed.

“Luisa is in her room,” she said, stepping aside and giving him space to enter. “We weren’t expecting you, Enrique.”

“I was in the area,” he lied, badly, trying to ignore the heat in his cheeks and the widening of her smile.

As he approached Luisa’s room his heart sped up in his chest, hammering against his ribs, spiking adrenaline through his veins. He knocked on her bedroom door, and when she didn’t answer cracked the door open just enough so he could peek inside.

She was dancing. Red in the face, breathing fast and hard, spinning in elaborate circles. There were large black headphones over her ears, and he could just hear tinny thin music drifting from them. Uncertain how to proceed, he knocked louder, unable to stop himself from matching the rhythm of her music.

Another spin. Her eyes landed on him. A short scream and she jolted backwards, then started laughing a breathless little laugh as she pulled the headphones off. “Oh, Rique, you scared me,” she giggled and his heart pitter-pattered a little faster. Her eyes skated over him, taking in the formal shirt, and she tilted her head in confusion. “Who’s getting married?”

He cleared his throat, trying to dislodge the fist that had closed around it, and offered her the box. “I brought you something,” he said, unable to totally clear the tremor from his tone.

Uncertainly, she took it from him. Traced the stylised ‘R’ on the lid with a trembling fingertip. Met his eyes and lifted a questioning eyebrow.

“Open it,” he prompted, stepping a little closer. When she did, as soon as her eyes fixed on the white leather flats inside, the simple style with an intricate curling pattern that was his trademark flourish, he dropped to one knee. Tears sprang to her eyes, even as a wide, joyous smile pulled on her lips, and she looked at him. “They’ll last a lifetime,” he said, now totally sure, totally confident. “Would you spend that lifetime with me, Luisa?”

She mouthed the word ‘Yes’ several times before her voice returned, and then knelt to hug him tight, and kissed him deeply. When she kicked off her ballet flats and pulled on the white shoes he’d made for her, they, of course, fit perfectly.

* * *

Victoria and Julio were inseparable for the first few years of his afterlife. Imelda would often come down to the workshop in the early morning to find them working together, Julio crafting shoes and Victoria scribbling in a notepad, occasionally laughing and nudging each other. Undoubtedly, having her around had made the transition into death much easier.

For his first Día de Muertos, they crossed over together, his fingers clamping tight around Victoria’s when he stepped onto the bridge. On the other side, Berto was bouncing Abel on his hip and telling him stories of Julio. Victoria put her arm around her father’s shoulders and hugged him to her as they listened, to the smile in Berto’s voice as he spoke about his Abuelo and watching the bright-eyed interest in Abel’s eyes as he peered curiously at them.

* * *

It was only small things, in the beginning. Where she’d left her notebook, or the time she’d agreed to meet for coffee. No one was really concerned. Mama Coco was in her early eighties, after all, and a little bit of memory loss was to be expected. Was normal. Was nothing to worry about.

It was when she started slipping, calling Carmen by Gloria’s name, or Abel by Berto’s, that they began to become concerned. When they questioned her about it—she had always been so good with names—she would bristle, tightening her lips to a thin line and knitting her eyebrows together. “Of course, I knew that,” she’d snap. “I misspoke.”

She started carrying a notebook with her everywhere, keeping a list of what she needed to do, even jotting down physical characteristics next to the names of her family. Of course, she kept this notebook intensely private. It wouldn’t do for them to realise just how far the memory loss ran.

* * *

Héctor needed a bone. A long bone, preferably a femur or a tibia, but a humerus would do in a pinch. Something he could easily conceal in his sleeve, but was still big enough to use as a weapon if he needed to. Not that he’d need to. Of course, he wouldn’t need to. The very idea was preposterous.

The plan was a simple one. Hide the bone upon his person. Dress in an elaborate costume: a long wig tied in a ponytail, a loose coat splattered with paint and dusted with plaster. Maybe even a palette, if he could find someone to lend him one. Best to plan without that: not many people were happy to lend him things anymore.

On that note, he needed tequila. Not good tequila, but at least better than the usual watered-down acid they drank in Shantytown. It took him a few months to procure even that. In the end he had to beg and plead with the clerk Sofía who, eventually, took pity on him and gave him a fifth of tequila from her previous offerings. “But not again, Héctor,” she said with a frown.

“Of course not, never, I’ll never ask for another thing,” Héctor said, turning up his charm to eleven. It wasn’t nearly as effective as it had been in years past, and he saw—and pointedly ignored—the pity in her eyes as he turned and left.

When he knocked on the doorframe of Cheech’s shack, he did not expect to be ushered in so quickly. It was as though Cheech could smell the tequila, and knew it was higher end stuff.

“Salud,” Cheech said with a grin. Héctor echoed him, tapped his glass against Cheech’s and downed the tequila. The burn was immediate and absolutely wonderful. “So, Héctor, what is it exactly you’re after?”

The guilt struck Héctor hard in the gut, and he choked on the swallow. “A-after? Who said I’m after anything, Cheech?”

A knowing wink, a long greying finger tapping on his nasal bone. “Ay, Héctor, you’re as subtle as a horny peacock. Just tell me what you want.”

Héctor flushed, his cheeks glowing, and gestured at Cheech’s leg. “Your femur?”

“My…femur…” Cheech narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“I think I can trick the scanner.” Héctor drew himself up, squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. “It won’t know what to make of me, it will default to yes and it will push me through.”

“Neither of us are on ofrendas, amigo.” Another swallow, a gesture to refill the glass. “Why won’t it default to no?”

Héctor’s shoulders drooped. “I have to try, Cheech. Please.”

To his surprise, Cheech nodded. “Fine. But you have to bring it back, Héctor. And leave the bottle.” With practiced ease, Cheech popped the head of his femur from its socket and handed it to him. Héctor held it close, feeling the sting of tears in his eyes.

“Thank you, amigo.”

“No thanks. Leave the bottle, the checkpoints will be opening soon.”

It played out exactly as Cheech had predicted. When Héctor stepped into the checkpoint, the machine did pause for a long moment, enough for hope to soar high in Héctor’s chest, before the red light flashed and the buzzer buzzed and his spirit crumbled a little bit at the edges. Seized by a sudden desperate flush of bravado, Héctor dove towards the opening of the checkpoint, towards the shining orange petals of the bridge. A guard appeared in front of him, from nowhere it seemed, and grabbed him around the middle. Every loose joint in his body jolted. His sleeves flapped. Cheech’s femur slid free. Ice spiked through every bone in Héctor’s body.

The femur cracked as it hit the paving. Skittered away between unsuspecting skeleton. Broke into two pieces. And disappearing over the edge, into the inky emptiness beyond.


End file.
